By George! What A Festival!

The future addresses the past

e’re a town with a lot of history, of course, and therefore, it’s great to have people in our midst who are out to make sure we keep that history alive.

Thanks to The La Touche Legacy plus The Greystones Archaelogical & Historical Society, it would appear as though our past is in pretty safe hands, with monthly meetings, talks, books and festivals throughout the year.

Over the past weekend, The 4th Festival Of History drew all these wonderful keepers of the flame together, along with a big and appreciative audience. You can check out our pics from the festival here.

In the meantime, here’s a round-up of the weekend from the organisers…

Martin Dodd and George…

At the completion of the 4th Festival of History – aka the 29th La Touche Legacy – George Jones commented, “We were delighted with the large attendance, the great quality of the presentations and the overall shape of the weekend “

The opening presentation on Friday by the students of 6th Class St Brigid’s National School was a stirring insight into the lives of three women with very close connections to Greystones – Grace Gifford, Kitty Kiernan and Sinead de Valera. George expressed the appreciation of the Committee for all the work undertaken with production by the students and, of course, by their teachers, Mary Beausang, Jane Ahern, Niamh Murray and, in particular, Martin Dodd.

On Friday, three lectures were provided by Dr Conor Mulvagh (UCD), Dr Maurice Manning (UCD) and Dr Ida Milne (NUI Maynooth), and the Committee thanked the three chairmen of these presentations; Cllr Christopher Fox, Cllr John Ryan and Cllr John Snell .

Again there was a large attendance on Saturday morning for talks by Dr Mel Farrell (NUI Maynooth) and Dr Leeann Lane, whilst our own local historian, Joan Kavanagh, provided the Jim Brennan Memorial Lecture.
The Seminar Dinner Guest Speaker was Dr Martin Mansergh Historian, Former Minister of State and former Advisor to successive Taoisigh. Chairperson of GAHS, Ms Rosemary Raughter, commented, “Everyone enjoyed Dr Mansergh’s elegant and exhilarating presentation on Saturday night and he made a very memorable contribution to what was an extremely successful weekend”. The Minister of Heath Deputy Simon Harris also addressed the dinner audience.

In conclusion George Jones thanked the Committee, the Captain and Staff of Greystones Golf Club, and it was certainly very nice to be in the home of golfer Paul Dunne on the weekend that he had won his first European title.

George also thanked Anne Daly SuperValu, East Coast Radio and local media The Greystones Guide, The Wicklow Times and The Bray People. But mainly The Greystones Guide. Because, he said, “they’re super-cool”.

Find out more about La Touche Legacy here and Greystones Archaelogical & Historical Society here.