Our next monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday, 8th November at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is Simon Chadwick, who will discuss Harpers in Armagh and beyond.

Simon has been researching the Irish harp tradition, focusing on the period from the end of the 18^th Century through to the start of the 20^th Century. He will discuss some of the traditional harpers who were active in Armagh over this period, including Patrick Quin and Patrick Byrne. He will show portraits of the harpers, photographs of their harps in Museums and private collections, and newspaper clippings detailing their events in the Market House and other venues around Armagh.

The talk will also be enlivened by a few tunes played on a traditional wire-strung Irish harp, to show how the old tradition is being revived and rediscovered here in Armagh.

The photograph of Simon is from his website (see below)

You can find out more at https://simonchadwick.net/

Our next monthly meeting will take place next Wednesday, 11th October at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is Eoin Maginness, who will be discussing:

Gender and the Irish Revolution in County Armagh, 1918-1924: The case of Nano Aiken

Nano Aiken was born Annie Aiken on 11th August 1896, the daughter of James Aiken and his second wife Mary McGeeney. James Aiken was a successful farmer living in Carrickbracken, Camlough, and as such became a public figure. He held positions as chairman of Newry’s Board of Poor Law Guardians, chairman of Newry No 2 Rural District Council and Justice of the Peace for county Armagh.

James Aiken died in 1900 , and his wife Mary in 1913, Nano’s younger brother Frank became involved with the Caml;ough Volunteers in 1914, and by 1918 Nano and Roisin Ni Beirne were organising republican women in the Camlough area in Cumann na mBan.

To find out more come to the talk.

Our first monthly meeting after the summer break take place on Wednesday, 13th September at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library. Our speaker this month is Dr Patrick Gleeson, who will discuss:

‘Re-discovering Emain Macha: ritual, religion kingship in Later Prehistoric and Medieval Ireland’

This lecture will present new results from large-scale geophysical survey in the Navan Fort landscape and targeted excavation of new parts of the Navan Fort complex itself. The results of this work transform our understanding of the Navan Fort and its wider landscape and regional context. Discoveries to be discussed include new medieval activity,  Iron Age discoveries that transform our understanding of the Waterman excavations, and the identification and excavation of some of the largest and most complex monuments identified on the island of Ireland. Results will be contextualised in terms of how these discoveries illuminate the ‘royal sites’ as a group, and their wider Northern European comparanda.

Our May meeting will be take place this Wednesday 10th May at 7:00 pm at Armagh County Club (33 Upper English Street), where member John Shephard will meet us and give us a short talk about the history of the club.

The building has been renovated as part of the Armagh City Townscape Heritage Scheme. This is a National Lottery Heritage Funded Regeneration Programme. £6.3m in funding has been secured for the Armagh City Townscape Scheme which consists of monies from ABC Council, £2m, National Lottery Heritage Fund, £1.92m and the remainder from private property owners.

Our next monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday 5th April  at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is Rosie Hickey from the Strand Cinema Project .

She will be talking about local cinemas and her cinema project, which is now being extended across Northern Ireland.

Rosie has worked as Heritage Officer of the Strand Arts Centre since 2020. She manages the ‘Strand Stories’ project (Strand Stories (strandstoriesbelfast.com)) which is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. In this role she combines two of her interests: exploring the nooks and crannies of historic buildings and collecting memories of Belfast’s past.

Rosie graduated with an MA (Hons) in Architectural History from the University of Edinburgh in 2010 and received a PhD in Architecture from Queen’s University Belfast in 2017. And since 2020 she has been a member of the Historic Buildings Council.

Our next monthly meeting will be take place on Wednesday 8th March in Armagh County Museum. We will start at the earlier time of 6:30pm with our Annual General Meeting, which will be followed by a talk starting at 7:30pm.

Our speaker this month is our Canadian member Sharon Oddie Brown. This year, Sharon will be speaking about Forkhill Jacksons: Kith and Kin.

Sharon will explore connections – with a dollop of humour and an unconventional approach to research – between various JACKSON families to the JACKSONs of Forkhill, including the alleged Armagh connections of Sir Thomas JACKSON (1839-1915) of Urker to Richard JACKSON of Forkhill.

Richard JACKSON of Forkhill had no children to inherit his estate, and the Forkhill Trust began thanks to bequests in his will. At the time, it took a fleet of lawyers to sort out various legal hurdles, but The Forkhill Trust continues to this day to support local charities.

Sir Thomas’ connection to the Forkhill JACKSON was claimed in 1912 when he donated money to the Forkhill Trust. The minutes of the Trust record: The Trustees thank Sir Thomas Jackson of Stansted house, Essex for helping build Creggan Schools. In his turn he thanked the Trustees for their contribution. He was a kinsman of the Founder, and was a banker in Hong Kong and had property at Urker, Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh.  

But was Sir Thomas a kinsman of Richard of Forkhill? Possibly. Were other JACKSONs of Co. Armagh also related? Probably. There are several twists and turns to this tale. Come and find out.

Our next monthly meeting will be taking place next week on Wednesday, 8th February at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library as usual.

Our speaker this month is Dr Laura Patrick, who is currently Regimental Heritage Officer and Director of the Virtual Military Gallery at the Regimental Headquarters of the Royal Irish Regiment in Holywood.

Her talk is entitled Investigating the Late Medieval Landscapes of Ulster: a Cartographic Study and is based on her study of the Bodley and Raven maps of 1608.

Our January meeting will take place on Wednesday, 11th January at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

This month sees the return of Dr Liam Campbell from the Centre for Migration Studies in Omagh.

His talk is entitled ‘Exploring the Migrant in everyone : Leaving, Crossing and Arriving’.

Our next monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday, 9th November at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is Dr Andrew Newby, who has already delivered two talks for us over Zoom on topics related to Irish / Finnish history. This time, he will be giving a talk in person on:

“The Evils Which Have Arisen In My Country”: Mary Power Lalor – A Female Landowner in Victorian Ireland.

Mary Power Lalor (née Ryan) was born in 1840 at Inch, Co. Tipperary, into a landowning family described as “one of the few Milesian Roman Catholic families to have retained their property.” Her mother, Catherine Whyte, came originally from Loughbrickland in County Down, and seems to have had a considerable influence on Mary’s later perspectives on self-help, education and philanthropy. After taking her husband’s estate upon his death in 1873, Mary Power Lalor became a significant figure in Irish life, involved in the New York Herald Relief Fund (1880), the relief of distress in Donegal (1883), and leading the Irish Distress Ladies Fund (from 1886), as well as being appointed Government Inspector of Lacemaking in Ireland (1887). 

This overview of Power Lalor’s life, highlights various interlinked themes in the economic, social and political life of late Victorian Ireland. Firstly, it demonstrates that philanthropy served a social function beyond altruistic engagement by the wealthier members of society: it contributed to the maintenance of the established social order. Secondly, the development of female participation in civic society, as well as the contemporary “self-help” ethos can be examined from her long involvement in philanthropic work. Thirdly, despite the “esteem and admiration” which Power Lalor may have received from some Nationalists, there were various points of turmoil during her life, especially during the Land War and the Pland of Campaign, underlining the impact of national politics on local landlord-tenant relations.

As a proud Irishwoman whose life was nevertheless securely anchored within the British imperial system, Power Lalor demonstrates that national identity in nineteenth century Ireland was not always polarised between “unionist” and “nationalist” as might be assumed.

This month’s talk will take place this Wednesday 12th October at 7:00 pm at Armagh Observatory in the library.

Our speaker this month is Brian McDonald, who will speak about The letters of Michael Haughey.

Michael was born in Armaghbreague, South Armagh in 1820 and the letters were written to his daughter, Allice, who emigrated to America.

The letters begin in 1888 and end in 1905; they are formally addressed and dated, beginning with “My Dear Allice” and end with “Your Affectionate Father – Michael Haughey”. In practically every letter he pleads with Allice to come home on a visit, but she endured hard times in America (5 of her 10 children died in infancy) and she didn’t make it home until1904, 24 years after she had left.

The letters contain details of family information, births, deaths and marriages and give us an insight into the customs at the time. Arranged marriages were very much the order of the day and a ‘fortune’ was paid to the groom by the family of the bride. There are a number of references to marriages, the negotiations and the amounts paid. 

Michael was first and foremost a farmer and he gives seasonal accounts of the farming year, from ploughing in January and February right through to the potato harvest and threshing the following winter. He reports on the crops he grows, years of good and poor harvest and prices gained for farm produce, such as potatoes, flax, butter and eggs, which he sold in the local markets.  We also get an indication of wages, the price of cattle, the price of land and rents paid to landlords.

The period of Michael’s life was a very interesting time in Irish history and he was active in politics throughout his life; he collected O’Connell’s ‘Catholic Rent’, was a Repeal Warden during the Land Wars and  acted as personating agent for Edward McHugh – MP for South Armagh (1892 – 1900)

When he was born the Penal Laws were still in force, he lived through the famine but by the end of his life Catholics could vote, sit in parliament and own land. He heard Daniel O’Connell speaking in Dundalk in 1843 and attended O’Connell’s funeral in 1847. He refers several times to Home Rule, which was the big political issue in the 1890s and was optimistic it would become a reality.

One of the most interesting aspects of the letters is his style of writing and the, almost, poetic phrases he uses in practically every paragraph. Michael well read as the letters are full of quotes from people like Thomas Moore, Goldsmith, Dickens, Thomas Gray and other lesser known authors.

The last letter is from John, informing Allice of the passing of their father in 1905.