Search Results for 'National Library'

WRITER/PERFORMER Donal O’Kelly is taking to the theatrical high seas again with one of his most celebrated plays, Catalpa, which hoves to at the Town Hall Theatre on Saturday February 7.

A Ballina secondary school teacher, who 20 years ago set himself the seemingly straightforward task of researching his mother’s homeplace of Tooreen, instead spent the intervening two decades uncovering the surprising and fascinating history behind the tiny village of Partry and its people.

The village of Partry is the setting of a story which spawns a thousand tales of descendants and diaspora; each with his or her very own destiny, life path and family tree. This rich historical and genealogical study of more than 200 families is brought to life in more than 500 pages and 20 chapters by Peter Hennelly McLoughlin. The book, Partry People of Co Mayo Family Histories 1856 and Beyond is a comprehensive historical record of the people of Partry, Parish of Ballyovey, and will be officially launched in Partry on August 29.

The first rowing club to be set up on the river was Corrib Rowing and Yachting Club, and shortly afterwards the Commercial Club was founded. The inauguration of yet another club in 1882, The Royal Galway Yacht Club, provided further competition in rowing and yachting. It contributed to regattas locally by fielding crews, being included on committees, and other rowing activities, and it seems to have had a very strong yachting section.

In March 1846, it was reported, “In the town of Galway, people were suffering under the most trying privations; not a stone of potatoes could be purchased at market for the use of 20,000 inhabitants, and in the western suburbs in the Claddagh, the fishermen have been living on half rotten potatoes.”

Dinny McGinley, Minister of State for the Gaeltacht, has launched a new Irish-language biographies website, www.ainm.ie at the end of the year at the National Library on Kildare Street, Dublin. Each of the featured 1,693 lives has made a unique contribution to the Irish language over the last five centuries. Forty-seven biographies featured are from people from Mayo.

The Labour Party’s presidential candidate Michael D Higgins this week presented his personal archive of writings and documents to the National Library of Ireland.

The original Hanna and her sisters were not the characters created by Woody Allen for his classic 1986 film, but the Sheehy Skeffingtons, who were prominent figures in Irish history.

In 1498, during the mayoralty of Andrew Lynch, an attempt was made to open a passage from the River Corrib along the Sandy River and through land to Lough Atalia, thus connecting the river to the sea.

This photograph of the interior of St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church was originally taken c1890 and was given us by the National Library. The Leper’s Gallery can be seen over the arches to the left.