Thomond Archaeological & Historical Society

Frontier settlements are cosmopolitan places, attracting a migratory population of optimists and adventurers. As the twelfth century began, Limerick was the westernmost trading town of a dynasty claiming authority over almost all Ireland as well as the Isle of Man and its bishop, seen externally as the key royal councillor, was the appointed representative of the Roman papacy. As the twelfth century ended, Limerick had become the newly conquered Atlantic outpost of an Angevin dynasty claiming authority over the whole of England and western France, as well as large parts of lowland Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The wanderings of Limerick merchants extended from Iceland in the north to Jerusalem in the east and they had the royal imprimatur to trade freely throughout the Angevin empire. The town, tiny by today’s standards, contained a royal mint, a royal garrison and the beginnings of a royal system of court justice as well as a cathedral church and a chapter of canons.  The earlier O’Brien kings still oversaw vital elements such as the town harbour and were capable of patronising both Dominican preaching friars and Cistercian pastoralists within the town walls and in the crowded streets, Welsh, Norse, English, French, Flemish and Irish voices could all be heard.

This lively, bustling society was recorded in contemporary charters and, in particular, in the Black Book of Limerick, a cartulary of St Mary’s Cathedral put together in the later fourteenth century. On the 28-31 October 2019, a four-day international conference celebrated this international inheritance has been organised on King’s Island under the aegis of the Thomond Archaeological and Historical Society and supported by the Irish Research Council. Speakers from Norway, Scotland, England, Germany and Ireland explored the men and women who populated the frontier town of Limerick, their international contacts and the nature of their lives in the new settlements of mid-West Ireland.

Further information on Limerick in this period are available from the blogsite:  wordpress.com/view/medievalhistoryfestivallimerick.home.blog

Twitter: LimerickFair@martinmasf

In the region of 250,000 Irish Americans served in the Union military during the American Civil War, some 180,000 of them Irish-born. Though its impact on Irish people is largely forgotten in Ireland today, the conflict almost certainly saw more men from Thomond fight and die than any other conflict in modern history, including the First World War. Following the war, the widows and dependent parents of those who lost their lives were entitled to Federal pensions. Those files, held in Washington D.C.’s National Archives, constitute the largest repository of detailed social information on ordinary nineteenth century Irish people that exists anywhere in the world (including Ireland). Among the pieces of evidence that applicants sometimes included in their applications were original letters written by Irish soldiers and sailors during the conflict. The lecture will explore some of the letters and stories of Thomond men and their families, in both Ireland and the United States.

The venue for this lecture is Room T.1.17 Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College, South Circular Road, Limerick at 8.00pm on Monday 15^th April 2019

Damian Shiels is a historian and archaeologist. He is currently a researcher at Northumbria University, working on Irish letters from the American Civil War. A former curator at the National Museum of Ireland, he has lectured and published widely both nationally and internationally on both Irish conflict archaeology and history. He has operated the www.irishamericancivilwar.com educational website since 2010, one of Ireland’s longest running history blogs. Among his books are The Irish in the American Civil War (The History Press, 2013) and The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America (The History Press, 2016).

The next lecture to the Thomond Archaeological and Historical Society is ‘Museums as Community Resources’, and will be given by Mr Tony Candon, who is a Kilkenny man and Keeper of Irish Folklife in the National Museum of Ireland. He is also Manager of NMI’s Museum of Country Life-Ireland’s National Folk Museum in Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo. Tony has spent his working life studying, thinking about and interpreting Ireland’s heritage across a number of disciplines. Aspiring to be a historian of medieval Ireland, economic necessity (and interest) forced him into work as an archaeologist in Cos. Cork and Tipperary. From there he moved to Co. Tyrone where he built and ran The Ulster History Park, an open-air archaeological theme park near Omagh. Later, he became the Curator of the four museums of Derry’s Heritage and Museum Service. Tony joined the National Museum of Ireland in March 2007 and there he still is…

The venue for this lecture is Room T.1.17 Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College, South Circular Road, Limerick at 8.00pm on Monday 25 March 2019.

What are museums for? Museums started out as “cabinets of curiosities”, eclectic collections of objects gathered by wealthy men for their own delectation and that of their friends. Over time, these collections gradually evolved through different mechanisms into public museums, designed to contribute to the education of the masses that they might improve themselves. In them, knowledgeable curators dispensed information about the objects they displayed: museums more or less told you what to think, more often than not in a condescending manner. In the late 20th and the early 21st centuries, museums have been evolving from that severe, formal instructional and didactic role. Now, they strive to be less remote Institutions talking down to their audiences and more engaged with the communities they serve. How does the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life do this?

On Wednesday 20 February 2019 at 7.00pm in the Granary Library, the Deputy Mayor of Limerick City and County, launched a major new digital history resource, which is the work of the Thomond Archaeological and Historical Society and Limerick Library. The Society was more than delighted to make available the entire back catalogue of their journal, the ‘North Munster Antiquarian Journal’ on the limerick.ie website. This constitutes a new free, on line source of more than 10,000 pages of history and archaeological writing, mainly focussed on Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary. this of course will add further to the unrivalled quantity of material made available on line by Limerick Archives, Limerick Museum and the local studies department of Limerick Library.