Our next monthly meeting will take place at 7:30pm in the Observatory Library. Our speaker this month is Dr Dónal McAnallen, who will be discussing:

Causes and effects of the Great Famine on the Powerscourt estate (Benburb-Eglish-Moy district)

This talk will shed new light on the causes and traumatic effects of the Great Famine on the Powerscourt Estate, County Tyrone, which comprised much of Clonfeacle civil parish – with Benburb as its headquarters, and stretching from the outskirts of the Moy to present-day Eglish village and the edge of the Brantry.

Based on fresh research of estate records, this talk will analyse the profound agrarian and sectarian tensions in the years preceding 1845. It will outline personal stories of hunger and want among the populace, and the response of officials of the estate, then overseen by the Earl of Roden, as well as local famine relief bodies. Comparisons will also be made with neighbouring estates, such as Charlemont and Caledon.

This talk will cover the period up to ‘Black ‘47’. The second instalment, to follow on 11th June, will account for the remainder of the period up to 1852.

Please note that this month’s talk will start at the later time of 7:30pm.

Our next monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday, 9th April at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library. Our speaker this month is Dr Greer Ramsey, who will be discussing

Treasure : Archaeology and the Coroner’s Court

‘Treasure’ items include some of the most significant artefacts on display in the Ulster Museum, ranging from Bronze Age gold jewellery to Viking silver – but what happens if I find ‘treasure’? Illustrated by an intriguing array of Treasure objects, this talk explores the treasure process and the 1996 Treasure Act.

Dr Greer Ramsey is Curator of Archaeology at National Museums NI and has played a key role over the years in dealing with treasure items. Greer graduated in Archaeology from QUB both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Our next monthly meeting will takie place on Wednesday, 12th March at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is History Group Member Rev. Gregory Dunstan, who will be discussing:

To Alleviate their Poverty and Protect their Faith’: The Early Years of the Armagh Protestant Orphan Society, 1867-1879.

Our next monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday, 13th November at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is Cormac Hamill.

Armagh-born Cormac is a former teacher and broadcaster, who has presented numerous TV series on BBC and TG4, all with a strong connection to the Outdoors. He was a founder member of the Cave Hill Conservation Campaign in 1989 and has been its Chair since 2006.

He will be discussing The geology, archaeology, history and environment of Cave Hill.

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

Our speaker this month is Lisa White.

Lisa specialises in in Human Osteoarchaeology and funerary rites and is currently undertaking a PhD at Queens University Belfast, investigating funerary rites in Middle to Late Neolithic Ireland. 

She recently undertook a placement at Armagh County Museum reviewing and cataloguing their human remains collections. Her talk is entitled: Grave Matters: the secrets held in ancient bones andshe will be discussing her research, what information can be gleaned from ancient human remains, and the role of Museums in facilitating this type of research.

We are starting our autumn series of meetings earlier this year. Our September meeting will take place on Wednesday, 4th September at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library.

Our speaker this month is Dr Edward Burke, who will discuss:

Ulster’s Lost Counties – loyalism after partition in 1920 in Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan and its effect on Northern Ireland

A graduate of Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the University of St Andrews, Edward Burke is an Assistant Professor in the History of War since 1945 at University College Dublin (UCD). He is currently the Director of the International War Studies MA programme and Director of Graduate Teaching at the School of History. Prior to joining UCD, he was an Assistant/Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Nottingham (2017-2022). His research interests are principally in military cohesion, paramilitarism and political violence. In 2020 he was awarded a two-year UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Early Career Leadership Fellowship on paramilitary violence in rural Ulster since 1920. He is the author of An Army of Tribes: British Army Cohesion, Deviancy and Murder in Northern Ireland, 1971-1972 (Liverpool University Press, 2018) and Ulster’s Lost Counties: Loyalism and Paramilitarism since 1920 (Cambridge university Press, 2024) and the forthcoming Ghosts of a Family : Ireland’s Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles (Merrion Press, September 2024)

Our last meeting of the season will take place on Wednesday, 12th June. We will be getting a guided tour of St Patrick’s Church of Ireland, Clonfeacle in Benburb.

We will meet at the church around 7:00 pm and the tour will be starting at 7:15pm. There is a car park at the Church, with more parking space available at the Priory. You will find a map of Benburb at the bottom of this post. The cost of the visit will be covered by the Group’s funds so there is no additional cost on the night.

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

Our speaker this month is Dr Leanne McCormick, Senior Lecturer in Modern Irish Social History and Director of the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI) at Ulster University. Her research interests include women’s history, history of sexuality and history of medicine in Ireland/Northern Ireland and she has published widely in these areas. With Dr Elaine Farrell (QUB), she has been working on the AHRC funded project ‘Bad Bridget: Criminal and Deviant Irish Women in North America, 1838-1918’. They have produced a five part podcast series on the project, an exhibition at the National Museums NI, Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh and an Irish Times #1 bestselling book, Bad Bridget: Crime, mayhem and the lives of Irish emigrant women. This will be the topic of our talk. You will find more details about the project at Bad Bridget – Ulster University and below.