Exciting Heritage Events

by Lucy Carroll

Local Author Nuala Ni Chonchubur reading in the Great Entrance Hall Garbally Mansion on the Clancarty Heritage Walk recently.

A busy year of activities for the Ballinasloe & District Heritage Society continued through the summer months with numerous outings and events. Society members enjoyed a guided tour of the Irish Workhouse Centre with Dr. Christy Cunniffe on a visit to see the ‘Ballinasloe Pot’ on display. The Ballinasloe Pot is believed to be the famine pot from the Ballinasloe Workhouse and was donated to the Heritage Society by a local family last year. The Society loaned the pot to the Irish Workhouse Centre until a suitable location in Ballinasloe can be found to display it. Another feature from the Ballinasloe Workhouse on display in the Centre is the large wrought iron fireguard. A visit to the Centre in Portumna to see these artefacts and much more is highly recommended.

In May, the Society partnered with BACD on the ‘Something for Everyone’ Tourism weekend and produced the Clancarty Estate Heritage Walk. This walk through Clancarty history brought 50 people through and around parts of the estate and noteworthy buildings guided by Declan Kelly, Fiona Maguire, Johnny Johnston, Barry Lally, Nuala O’Connor and Elisabeth Affolter. Society Chair Conor Johnston said “I would like to thank everybody that contributed to this special event particularly those that opened the doors to the buildings, Reverend Godfrey of St. John’s Church, Fr. Allman of Garbally House and Alan Harney and Máire Hughes of Ballinasloe Town Hall, and to Mike O’Brien of Brewery Lane who provided refreshments to the tired, drenched but happy tourists on their return to town. We look forward to working with BACD again in the future in exploring new avenues for Ballinasloe and surrounds to capitalise on the broad, rich history and heritage that could turbo charge regeneration in the area through heritage and genealogy led tourism.’

For Heritage week, the Society has teamed up with the local art collective Group 8 and the Library for the ‘On Our Doorstep’ art and heritage collaboration where artists will display commissioned works centred on the theme of Ballinasloe’s ecclesiastical history. At 6pm on Tuesday 20th August, The Society will also host a talk in the library by Genealogist Pat Glennon on his research of the Glennon surname in East Galway and South Roscommon and his new project researching the genealogy of the surnames which emerged from the medieval Kingdom of Uí Maine. The Society will then partner with the October Fair & Festival in producing a special one off of their hugely popular ‘Town Talks’ series for the Festival Schedule of events. The event will be titled ‘The October Fair – Our History, Our Heritage’ and details will be confirmed in the Fair and Festival schedule and online via Facebook. Work also continues apace on volume 1 of the Journal of the Heritage Society with guest editor Damian McCullagh which will be launched in November.

Whilst submissions for the Journal closed at the end of June, the Society is keen for the next generation of budding historians to be involved. Conor Johnston: ‘Even though formal schooling is out for a couple of months, we are keen to have local National School pupils up to Junior Cycle students of the area’s secondary schools involved in researching and writing about their own family’s history. We’d love to receive articles from pupils of up to 750 words telling the story of a historical family member that was part of Ballinasloe society or emigrated from the town and surrounds over the last 100/200 years. We will publish one of these articles in the Journal this year, selected by our Guest Editor, and the junior historian will receive a Shop Local voucher for their efforts’. Articles along with photographs of the family member and the writer can by be emailed to [email protected] by Thursday September 12th