Keeping Greystones’ Past Present

Rosemary’s garden…

hen it comes to the ever-growing online archives of Greystones history, most of us are magpies.

Rosemary with Joan Jones

Lifting a shiny pic from the vast lucky dip of the internet, grabbing a paragraph or two from a dusty old book or faded blog…

And we include the bould GG in there too, most of our local history the result of giving a platform to those who actually know what they’re talking about.

Undoubtedly one of Greystones’ finest historians, Rosemary Raughter digs deeper than most, trawling through county records, old newspaper clippings and national archives to put as many parts of our vast historical jigsaw back together.

We first spoke with Rosemary about keeping those home fires burning back in September 2016, as the 28th La Touche Legacy weekend of historical lectures wrapped up for another year, and the following year, it was the turn of our local Carnegie library to get the Raughter treatment.

Winter Is Here by Riona Baldwin

Not long after, Rosemary had unearthed the diary of one Lady Arbella Denny, as she spent a grand day out gallivanting around Delgany in August 1770, whilst the blue plaque commemoration of Hilda Webb and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington – challenging Ireland’s Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell on votes for women as he took an official tour of Greystones’ collapsing harbour back on October 25th, 1910 – sparked not one, not three but two fine articles.

Deverell

The launch of the Our Wicklow Women exhibition at Greystones Library in August 2019 soon had us exploring those Greystones ladies who had made our world a better place, starting with trailblazing barrister Averil Deverell and street fighting woman (and author) Mairin Ryan (nee Cregan). 

We touched upon the ridiculously mighty Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed when we visited the site of Killincarrick House down at the Woodlands, visiting another local landmark house, Craiglaith (now Edenmore) on Kinlen Road, where the De Valeras lived, which was handy for Michael Collins, especially when it came to his proposal plans with young Kitty Kiernan.

Rosemary had a more sobering true-life tale for us in February of 2020, recounting the killing of Delgany man Thomas Dogherty back on October 1st 1798 – shot in front of his mother by Newtownmountkennedy man Hugh Woolaghan.

Our plans for other historical ramble chats were put on hold by Covid-19 though, with Rosemary jumping back through the local archives to chart how Wicklow got through the Spanish Flu 100 years ago. Over three fascinating posts – on April 5th, April 20th, and May 8th – Rosemary reminded us all that we’ve been here before. And that all things must pass.

When those lockdowns finally became history too, Rosemary returned with tales of Dr James Ryan,  Wicklow’s place in The War Of Independence, Avondale’s Anna Parnell and an 1891 Delgany children’s home scandal… 

You can find out more about Rosemary Raughter on Wicklow Heritage here, and follow her on Twitter right about here. You can find out more about the La Touche Legacy here and the Greystones Archaelogical & Historical Society here.