All posts by Richard

Events

May Meeting

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.

Events

April Meeting

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.

Events

March Meeting

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.

Events

February Meeting

Please note change of venue for this meeting

Our next monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday, 12th February at 6:30pm in Armagh County Museum (in the ground floor reading room, kindly made available by the Natural History and Philosophical Society). Our Annual General Meeting will take place first, starting at 6:30pm, followed by the talk at 7:00 pm.

Our speaker this month will be archaeologist Paul Logue, who specialises in Gaelic society, conflict and identity in Ireland c.1200-1650 and has published widely on those topics since the early 1990s. He will be discussing:

Richard Bartlett and the Lost Castle of Armagh

English military cartographer Richard Bartlett’s 1602 image of Armagh is normally taken to indicate a deserted town on the eve of capture by the crown’s Lord Deputy Mountjoy. Previous descriptions of it stress an unoccupied town in ruins save for a small secular community in thatched wicker cabins. In addition, various layers of deeper meaning have been put upon the image linking it with contemporary English messages of a failed Gaelic order and the supposed advance of civilisation into Ulster. This talk re-examines the image highlighting previously missed aspects, reinterpreting the message, and also identifying the site of ‘the lost castle of Armagh’ brought back to the light by Kevin Quinn.    

Events

January Meeting Camcelled

Our January monthly meeting on Wednesday, 8th January at 7:00 pm in the Observatory Library has beem camcelled as our soeaker has a significant distance to travel in what are expected to be poor weather conditions. We hope to rearrange the talk later in the year.

Our speaker will be Professor Keith Lilley of the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University, Belfast.

An historical geographer with particular research expertise in interpreting historic landscapes, maps and built environments, he is currently involved in OS200–Digitally Re-Mapping Ireland’s Ordnance Survey Heritage, an all-island (UK-RoI) research collaboration between Queen’s University Belfast, University of Limerick and the Royal Irish Academy. He will be discussing the following topic:

Ordnance Survey @ 200: Local Heritage of Global Importance

2024 marked the bicentenary of the beginning of the Ordnance Survey (OS) in Ireland. In this highly-illustrated talk, Professor Keith Lilley explores the local impacts OS surveying and mapping had two hundred years ago, as well as the surveyors’ enduring legacies in our landscapes today. The evidence for the OS’s mapping work is all around us as ‘local heritage’, often hidden and neglected. And yet this local heritage is of global importance, for the OS in Ireland in the 1820s-30s played an important international role in developing globally the science of earth measurement (‘geodesy’), and Armagh’s contribution in this was key. 

I hope you will be able to attend.

Events, News

History Armagh Vol.5, No.4 2025

The Armagh & District History Group produces a magazine “History Armagh” each year.  The latest copy of the magazine will be available in local shops and other outlets following its lauunch on Thursday, 12th December just in time for a last minute stocking filler..

The magazine is free to members and costs £4.50 to non-members.  It will be available in the following local outlets: Armagh County Museum, The Mall; Charlemont Hotel, Cultural Heritage Services Library, 1 Markethill Road, Armagh; Emerson’s Supermarket; Macaris Newsagents; McAnerny’s Supermarket; Navan Centre; O’Kane’s Supermarket; Red Neds Bar; Rocks, Thomas Street; Royal Irish Fusiliers Museum, The Mall; Whittle’s Supermarket, Newry Road.

If you live at a distance from Armagh postage can be arranged by contacting: magazine@history-armagh.org

Some sample articles from the early magazines can be found here.

Some pdf copies of earlier magazines can be found here.

Events

December Meeting

Our next monthly meeting will take place on Thursday 12th December at 7:00 pm in Armagh County Museum, when we will be launching the new issue of the new History Armagh magazine.

Members will be able to collect their free copy of the magazine on the night. If you are unable to come and collect it then, members’ copies will be available to collect from the Museum shop from the following day.

Events

November Meeting

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.