Lecture: Pilgrimage in Medieval Waterford

Pilgrimage in Medieval Waterford

A lecture by Dr Louise Nugent to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society 2018 – 2019 lecture season continues on Friday March 1st with a lecture at 8 pm in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Waterford when Dr Louise Nugent will deliver a talk titled “Pilgrimage in Medieval Waterford”.

Pilgrimage was a central part of life throughout the medieval period. It was practiced in Ireland from the 7th century to the 15th centuries and following the reformation it continued down to the present day. This lecture will explore what motivated people to go on pilgrimage to in Medieval Ireland, where they went and the various types of sites that were used for pilgrimage. It will have a particular focus on evidence relating to Waterford and the south-east.

Dr Louise Nugent is a Tipperary-based archaeologist and blogger who specialises in pilgrimage and folk art. In 2010 she was awarded a PhD by University College Dublin for her research on Pilgrimage of Medieval Ireland. She has contributed papers on her research to a variety of journals and edited books and is in the final stages of writing a book on Irish pilgrimage. She curates the blogs Irish Folk Art Project (https://irishfolkartproject.wordpress.com/) and Pilgrimage in Medieval Ireland (https://pilgrimagemedievalireland.com/) in the latter she covers topics relating to modern and medieval Irish pilgrim traditions

Photos: 'Waterford Archaeology From the Air' Lecture

Lecturer Simon Dowling with Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society Chairperson Beatrice Payet. 

On January 25th, a full-house heard Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society member, Simon Dowling, deliver a fascinating and accessible lecture titled ‘Waterford’s Archaeology From the Air’.  

St. Patrick's Gateway Centre hosted the talk by Simon Dowling. 

Simon illustrated a variety of the aerial photographic techniques he has used and how he analyses publicly available satellite and laser imagery to reveal otherwise hidden aspects of many archaeological sites in Waterford. It was a well-received lecture which generated a lively discussion afterwards.

Lecture: Waterford’s Archaeology from the Air

Waterford’s Archaeology from the Air

A lecture by Simon Dowling to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society lecture season for 2018 and 2019 continues on Friday 25th January with a lecture at 8 pm in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Waterford when Simon Dowling, a local pharmacist and committee member of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society, will share his passion for Waterford's rich archaeological heritage with his talk on, “Waterford's Archaeology From the Air”. Simon has spent a number of years photographing, scanning and analysing sites of archaeological interest around the county. The talk will showcase a virtual overview of Waterford’s archaeology that has been imprinted on the landscape across the county.

Simon applies an aerial scanning technique called photogrammetry, a method which often reveals hidden details in the landscape which may otherwise be overlooked. He has been involved in a number of heritage projects across the county in this capacity and will share visualisations of the sites recorded. The Summer of 2018 also presented a special opportunity for airbourne photographers to record cropmarks and make new discoveries, and part of the talk will detail his endeavours in this respect. 2018 also saw the publication of an aerial laser survey (LIDAR) covering parts of the country, and he will give an overview of the different types of archaeological sites that this has brought to light across County Waterford.

The talk aims to avoid much of the technical details and instead focus on presenting virtual visits to a variety of archaeological sites around the county. It should therefore be enjoyable and accessible for anyone with an interest in the County’s heritage.

Admission to the lecture is €5 (students €2.50), but is free for members of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society.

Lecture: 1918 – Why Did Sinn Fein Win the Elections?

1918 – Why Did Sinn Fein Win the Elections?

A lecture by Dr Pat McCarthy to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society lecture season for 2018 and 2019 continues on Friday 30th November with a lecture at 8 pm in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Waterford by Dr Pat McCarthy titled ‘1918 – Why Did Sinn Fein Win the Elections?’.

In the general election of December 1918 Sinn Fein swept to an unprecedented and overwhelming triumph. In an electoral landslide the Irish Parliamentary Party, for so long the representative of Irish nationalism, was swept aside. Sinn Fein won every seat outside of Ulster except for Waterford City which remained loyal to the Redmonds.

The triumph of Sinn Fein may seem to have been unavoidable in retrospect. Building on the party’s four by election victories in 1917, it would appear that the Sinn Fein bandwagon was unstoppable. That is far too simplistic an interpretation of the complex events of 1918. Remarkably the Irish Parliamentary Party won three by elections early in 1918. These results came as a shock to the Sinn Fein leadership and John Dillon, the new leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party declared: “we have Sinn Fein on the run”.

However, the decision of Lloyd George and the British government to introduce conscription to Ireland changed the situation completely. Nationalist Ireland, the political parties, the Catholic Church and the trade union movement united in a remarkable show of defiance. Faced with such a united front the British government soon abandoned its plans but conscription had reinvigorated Sinn Fein. That party now had a branch in every parish while the Irish Parliamentary Party collapsed. No wonder that the eminent historian A. J. P. Taylor declared that April 9th, the day that the conscription bill was introduced into Westminster as “the day that England lost Ireland.” This lecture will look at the events of the historic year from both national and Waterford perspectives.

Pat McCarthy, is a native of Waterford city and past pupil of Mount Sion, he holds a PhD and an MBA from UCD and worked for many years in the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. He has lectured and published extensively and is the author of The Irish Revolution 1912-23, Waterford (Four Courts Press, 2015), Waterford and the 1916 Rising (Waterford City and County Council, 2016), The Redmonds and Waterford, a political dynasty 1891-1952 (Four Courts Press, 2018) as well as papers in the Irish Sword (the Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland) and Decies (the Journal of the Waterford Historical and Archaeological Society) on a broad range of subjects.

This lecture will appeal to anyone interested in the history and politics of Waterford and Ireland in the revolutionary period. Admission to the lecture is €5 (students €2.50), but is free for members of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society.

Imagine Arts Festival: Decies Launch 27th October 2018

Decies Journal Launch 2018

Date: Saturday, 27th October.

Time: 6:00pm

Venue: Parnell Room, Granville Hotel.

Admission: Free Event


As part of the Imagine Arts Festival the local Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society will launch their latest journal Decies No. 74 with talks from contributors and music provided by Rachel Grace.

This year's speakers include Karen Hannon on St. Carthage's Cathedral, Lismore, Co. Waterford and the Currey Family Memorials, the research of which was conducted as  part of Diploma of Genealogy in University College Cork completed in 2017.

Brigid McIntyre will talk on her creative nonfiction article titled A Bride in Tallow, 1941-42 about the early married life of her mother, a very poignant story about love, loss and rural Ireland.

Music is from Rachel Grace, an up and coming Wexford-born singer-songwriter that is firmly paving  her  way towards becoming one of Ireland's leading female artists.

Rachel recently won the busking festival,judged by renowned Jackie Hayden, at The Gorey Market Festival and took to the stage at this years Electric Picnic on Natashas Food Emporium stage on Sunday 2nd September.

Having already released an album in 2015, her new EP 'Routes' was just released on the 27th of May this year. It is available on all major platforms and is already receiving a lot of attention from radio stations. Without any doubt, this EP holds a very promising future for this young artist.

Journal for sale at €15.
All are welcome.

Lecture: Here Comes the Sun – Solar Imagery in Early Bronze Age Ireland

Here Comes the Sun – Solar Imagery in Early Bronze Age Ireland

A lecture by Mary Cahill to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society lecture season for 2018 and 2019 continues on Friday 19th October with a lecture at 8 pm in the Parnell Room of the Granville Hotel, Waterford by Mary Cahill titled ‘Here Comes the Sun – Solar Imagery in Early Bronze Age Ireland’.

Ireland is renowned for the quantity and quality of the gold objects created in the Bronze Age. In this lecture Mary Cahill will present some ideas about the nature and function of the stunning gold objects created by some of the earliest metalworkers in Ireland four thousand years ago. These include gold sun-discs and crescentic gold collars called lunulae.



Mary will explore how our ancestors may have responded to natural phenomena especially how they sought to reproduce visually extraordinary solar events. This was not an innovation in terms of how the sun was perceived, all the evidence from the preceding Neolithic period suggests that the sun was the pre-eminent and dominating force that ruled the lives of people all over the ancient world. However, with the coming of metallurgy and the influx of new people and influences from the other parts of Atlantic Europe it seems that a new materialisation of solar imagery and presumably new forms of cult practice developed in Ireland.



There is a close concordance between gold discs and the ornamentation found on some forms of pottery placed with the dead in the Early Bronze Age. As these vessels, known as Bowls or Food Vessel Bowls, were in use between 2200-1800 BC it is likely that the popularity of this particular manifestation of the sun cult was strongest at this time, although its introduction was earlier with the earliest discs dated to c. 2400 BC. It also continued into the later stages of the Early Bronze Age as the solar images are also found on the bases of other types of pottery. The origin of these solar images is seen in the Bell Beaker pottery of the Iberian peninsula. Marys’ ground –breaking research has shown that lunulae can be re-interpreted as a form of wearable vessel or solar boat guiding and protecting the sun.



Although very little early goldwork is known from Co. Waterford itself, one very important and indeed unique object – a stone die for making gold foil discs – was found at Hacketstown, near Portlaw and it will be the focus of special attention in the lecture.

Mary Cahill is former Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Musuem of Ireland and is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Geography and Archaeology at NUI Galway. Her special areas of interest are prehistoric goldwork, history of collections and antiquarianism. Much of her work has related to developing an understanding of how Bronze Age goldwork can be interpreted especially in terms of its function and symbolism. She tweets as @au_ireland.



This lecture will appeal to anyone interested in the archaeology, ritual  and religion of pre-Christian Ireland and the history of art. Admission to the lecture is €5 (students €2.50), but is free for members of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society.

Book Launch: Waterford Merchants and their Families on Distant Shores

Waterford Merchants and their Families on Distant Shores

This book has just been written by Liam Murphy, who is a native of Waterford. The book will be launched in the Book Centre in Waterford at around  6.30 on Friday 2nd November.

The book deals with those Waterford merchants who were forced to leave Waterford by the new Cromwellian authorities in the 1650s because they had lost their rights to trade and to hold civic positions in the city. The book is based on sources in English, French and Spanish and deals with the subsequent careers of these emigrant merchants and their families and descendants in the port cities of France, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands.

Some of them became very successful such as John Aylward, who lived in Málaga, St Malo and London. Other successful merchants were Juan Murphy and Tomás Quilty who both also lived in Málaga, and Bernardo Valais (Walsh) who settled in Tenerife. Eustaquio Barron made so much money in Mexico that he was able to go on a two-year holiday in Europe with his family. Two of the descendants of these Waterford merchants became Cardinals, namely Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman and Cardinal Merry del Val, who were both born in Seville. Another descendant, José Blanco White, was a well-known writer and changed his religion twice, while María Gertrudis Hore, who was described as the most beautiful woman in the Cádiz of her day was a leading woman writer in Spain in the eighteenth century. Antoine Walsh and Pierre-Joseph Lincoln were slave-traders in Nantes, and Antoine Walsh also brought Bonnie Prince Charlie to Scotland for the 1745 Jacobite uprising there. Nicolas Geraldino (Fitzgerald) from Cádiz commanded the Spanish flagship in the Spanish-Franco victory over the British fleet at Toulon during the War of the Austrian Succession. Luis Power of Bilbao was an officer in the Spanish army and he died alongside his cannon defending the city against the invading French troops.

There are many other interesting characters also discussed in this book, which should prove of particular interest to those interested in these old Waterford families.