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"Carlow: History and Society" Book Launch
11th December 2008
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Launch Speech by Fr Kevin O’Neill, President, Carlow College
Launch Speech by Fr Kevin O’Neill, President, Carlow College of Carlow: History and Society (pages 1, 096) in the P.J. Brophy Library of Carlow College.
The book we are launching this evening, Carlow: History and Society, is part of a major series on the counties of Ireland which began in 1985 with the publication of a book on Tipperary edited by William Noland and Thomas McGrath.
Books published under the rubric County History and Society are specially designed to be intelligible and to be enjoyed. While sacrificing nothing by way of scholarly rigour they present history in a manageable reader- friendly and yet very comprehensive fashion. They give the reader a broad interdisciplinary perspective on a county’s history, in well- focused articles which are well researched, well illustrated, and which represent the best of what is being written on the history of a county at the time of publication.
The guiding genius behind the series is Prof. William Nolan, a Tipperary man and a historical geographer, who runs Geography Publications with his wife Teresa, when he is not working in U.C.D. or out doing his field -research across the four provinces of Ireland. The day he and that other Tipperary man Dr. Thomas McGrath got together to edit the Tipperary book and later the Kildare book was a happy day for history.
It is most appropriate that this launch is taking place in The P.J.Brophy Memorial Library which honours the memory of a great Carlovian, who spent most of his workimg life in this college, and who loved the County with every fibre of his being. P.J.Brophy never lost an opportunity to praise or promote his native county and constantly wrote about it in his newspaper articles and radio talks.
He was a founder of the Old Carlow Society and first editor of its journal. He and his fellow founders longed for the day when an authoritative history of Carlow would be written but he and Liam Bergin and Peadar Mac Suibhne were wise enough and humble enough to know that there was much work to be done on local and social history to prepare the way for a more comprehensive work.
How he would love to be here this evening! How he would glory in this occasion! But so would so many others who shared his dream; I would like to remember some of them to-night and recognise their contribution.
I mention Mary Teresa Kelly, Billy Ellis, Sean O’Leary, Seamus Ó Lionnain; Tommy Smith, Carmel McDonnell, Iona McLeod, Pat Purcell; Bill Kelly; Sheila Kelly; Aidan Murray; Veronica Crombie, T.P.O’Neill, Alec Burns and so many others.
To-night we stand on their shoulders.
And there are others whose work flows into the book we celebrate this evening: Bishop Michael Comerford, A past student of this college whose three volumes of Collections Relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin is the most ambitious piece of research ever done on the parishes of Carlow. His books appeared in the 1880s, the decade in which this chapel was built.
The incomparable lovable, roguish and very industrious Fr. Peadar Mac Suibhne, devoted his life to history and in addition to his work on Cardinal Cullen and ‘98 in Carlow, he achieved a new genre in his parish histories by fusing fact and folklore in a tantalising fashion. However his works are a marvellous source of oblique references to the whole gamut of local history, social, agrarian, political and ecclesiastical.
I must mention Michael Brophy author of Carlow Past and Present. His paean to Carlow was a timely song of praise designed to lift hearts and restore civic confidence when morale was low in Carlow.
I mention Victor Hadden, whose Come Conquer Castles drew attention to an underrated aspect of our heritage, the ruins of castles and fortified houses which dot the Carlow landscape.
Among the living Michael Conry’s work is very important and his magnum opus on Carlow granite is a major contribution to a greater appreciation of our heritage. The indefatigable Jimmy O’Toole’s work on distinguished Carlovians and celebrities with Carlow connections, as well as his research on the Carlow gentry has raised our consciousness of Carlow connections worldwide.
So too has Fr. John McEvoy’s work on Carlow College.
Important work has been done by Tom King on Carlow town, by Sr.Declan Power on St.Moling, by Norman McMillan on Tyndall and by Colum Kenny on St. Molaise , Pádraig Ó Snodaigh’s work on 1798 and Prof. Donal McCartney’s work on many aspects of Carlow history, together with the books on Carlow Golf Club by Joe Mc Donald and Seamus Connellan and by Leo McGeough on Carlow G.A.A, all fill out the picture.
But of course the unsung heroes are the editors and contributors to Carloviana who for 60 years have championed the cause of Carlow’s past. We salute Martin Nevin, Seamus Murphy, Tommy Clarke, Pat O’Neill, Dermot Mulligan, Jim Shannon, Margaret Minchin, Dan Carbery and Carmel Flahavan and the others.
They are custodians of a fine heritage and their articles and collections of photos and artefacts will ensure that future generations will know who their forbearers were and how they lived.
They all deserve our appreciation and respect. But there is one man beyond all others who deserves a special accolade to-night. Since he first came to Carlow 25 years ago he has immersed himself in facets of Carlow history never properly worked before. I refer of course to author, scholar, editor and registrar of this college, Dr. Thomas McGrath; though a Tipperary man by birth, Tom is a Carlovian by osmosis.
Through his extensive research on the life and times of J.K.L which resulted in the much acclaimed three volume work on that great man and his research on other 18th and 19th century churchmen, Tom has amassed an extraordinary knowledge of County Carlow, its every parish, village and townsland, and he is familiar with everything that was thought, written or said in Carlow between 1715 and 1926.
It is as if Carlow was waiting for him. Heaven knows, you cannot rush into a county and do a history as you might a census of cattle or sheep. Tom McGrath is working in Carlow since 1983. He has earned his indentures. He has served a long apprenticeship. Little did I know when he first walked into this college that he would be the one who within a quarter of a century would have given us not only the definitive work on Bishop Doyle, but who would fulfil P. J. Brophy’s aspiration and produce an authoritative history of this county. And what he has given us is not just a magnum opus but a veritable jeroboam of a book, eleven hundred pages long.
Carlow: History and Society is a well made and handsome book; it is thoughtfully constructed; it is chronologically coherent. It is comprehensive in scope and reflective of the colour and diversity of the county, its towns, villages and country places, its geography geology and geomorphology, its architecture, archaeology and agriculture, its people personality and culture, its heroes, heroines, its oppressors and persecutors.
It contains 134 illustrations, many of great sociological as well as historical importance, some never before published. The index of 67 pages will ensure that the book is a useful reference source for the general reader.
And the timing is perfect. Carlow needs this book. This book will help our county to reclaim its history and refine its identity. Without a proper sense of history much of the colour is drained out of society
And self-esteem suffers; we don’t know who we are.
A society needs a framework whether mythic or historical against which to interpret itself; it needs heroes and heroines to animate and inspire it.
This book will support the good work of historical societies in the county; it will be an asset to educators; it will constitute a marvellous resource to groups such as those who do such great work under the aegis of Carlow Pride of Place Project.
It will complement the fine work being done by Eileen O’Rourke and Carlow Tourism, by the Councils, by the Enterprise Board and Carlow Leader and by the Library service.
With the new Arts Centre and Theatre opening up outside our door and Merck and Dome and Unum setting up business here, with a refurbished Duckett’s Grove emerging as a unique tourist attraction and our town brimming with third level students it is important to be reminded that we are citizens of no mean county.
This noble county which has felt the footfall of every movement of peoples into Ireland since the Neolithic Age has, as Bev. Carbery used say at Eigse, an important tale to tell, and it needs to be heard.
It will never be better told than in this fine book. I am honoured to launch it!
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