Local history 'gives future credibility'

People involved in local history groups don't just preserve the past, but ensure that the future is not held to ransom by the activities of some in the present.


Fr Sean Doherty, president of the Federation of Local History Societies; Ger McCarthy, chairman of Naas Local History Group; Cllr Mary Glennon, Mayor of Kildare; and Larry Breen, chairman of the Federation of Local History Societies.

That was the strong view expressed by the Mayor of Kildare, Cllr Mary Glennon, when she opened the AGM and Annual Seminar of the Federation of Local History Societies, held in Kilcullen today.

"In this age of more and plenty, we are so much being held hostage to people who think nothing of tearing out history and replacing it with as many storeys as they can get away with," she said. "They forget that if we tear out everything and abandon our past, then our future will have no credibility."

Mayor Glennon added that local history enthusiasts weave together the threads of people's lives into 'tapestries that live forever'.

She recalled how a recent visit to New York to lead the Kildare Society in the St Patrick's Day Parade had reinforced this view in a very personal way. The occasion was a dinner hosted by the Kildare Society during her visit.

"I was in a room with some 60 people from all over Kildare, many who had left in the 50s and early 60s when times were bad," she said. "It was amazing how many of them either myself or my husband could connect with, either because we knew their parents or uncles or brothers, or even their children returned to Ireland."

Recalling that her knowledge of her own family's history was incomplete because of the death of her father when she was young, she said that 86 year old Tom O'Shea, who had walked the full length of the parade, was able to tell her stories about her own family's history that she didn't know.

Delegates to the meeting came from many parts of Ireland, including the North, from where Lisburn, Downpatrick and Carrickfergus were represented.


Frank Taffe, Athy Local History Group; and Nessa Dunlea, Kilcullen Local History Group.

Naas man Larry Breen has been the chairman of the Federation for the past year and he said it was very welcome to see that links between the Ulster Federation and the groups in the South were being strengthened after being absent for a number of years.

The chairman of the Kildare Federation of Local History Groups, Ger McCarthy of Naas, gave the keynote talk for the Seminar, on the Eustace family of County Kildare, whose connections go back to Norman times.

The Monasterevin-based Lord Edward's Own Reenactment Group also attended the event. Pictured below are John Walsh, Eamonn Dunne, Gemma Dunne, Thomas Dunne and Barry Walsh.



After concluding the business of the National Federation, the delegates had lunch in Fallons and then went on a tour of Palmerstown House in Naas.

Brian Byrne.

(A slide show from the event can be viewed here.)