It was a big day at the Johnston Central Library in Cavan on 27th January as staff welcomed Hollywood actor Chris Noth and a film crew from USA version of the genealogy series, Who Do You Think You Are?

He was visiting to tracing his Cavan‎ ancestry for the show which will be aired later in 2016. His great great grandfather came from the villlage of Knockbride.

Speaking to local radio station Northern Sound News, County Librarian Tom Sullivan said: “As far as we can ascertain it’s the Knockbride/Ballieboro area. Maguire is his ancestor’s name and they would have emigrated to Canada.

Chris is pictured here with Tommy Ryan (CEO of Cavan County Council), Tom Sullivan (County Librarian), council and genealogy staff, Concepta McGovern and Mary Sullivan. ©Lorraine Teevan Photography and Cavan County Library.

Cavan Genealogy is based in the Johnston Central Library, Farnham St., Cavan. You can contact the centre at cavangenealogy@eircom.net or search the records at www.cavan.rootsireland.ie

Dublin City Book Fair on Sunday 24th January at the Tara Towers Hotel, Merrion Road from 11am – 5pm.

Admission €2.00

We resume our Book Fairs this Sunday, usual venue and would like to welcome all our collectors and browsers. Our bookbinder, Phil Furlong, will be on hand to give advice and to exhibit some of his works. Bring along any old books or ephemera you would like preserved for another hundred years or so and Phil will advise at no cost. There will also be Free Valuations. Where would you get anything free nowadays?

Listed below are some items our dealers are bringing to the Fair along with many thousands of other books, Antiquarian, Rare, Firsts, Periodicals, Bargains, Ephemera and Prints.

James Howell Rare Books, Dublin will have the following books for sale:

Corballis, Caroline, Hunting in County Kilkenny, 1999, Signed by the Author.

Extracts from the Minutes and Advices of the Yearly Meeting of Friends Held in London, From its First Institution. Second Edition, London , 1802.

Cavendishe, William, A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses and Work Them according to Nature. First Edition, Small Folio, London, Printed by Tho. Milbourn, in the year 1667. Full Antique Leather, Blind Stamped designs, Edge Dentelle, Gilt Titles. A lovely copy.  The first published work on the art of dressage.

A Collection of Signed First Editions by various authors including Ian Rankin, Roddy Doyle, John Boyne, Emma Donoghue including “Room”  Pauline Bewick, Ian McEwan, Colm Toibin, Colm McCann, Aidan Higgins.

We will also have a large selection of scarce and out of print books for sale.

Dublin Bookbrowsers are offering:

Carr’s Stranger in Ireland (1806); Edmund Borlase. The Reduction of Ireland to the Crown of England with the Governors Since the Conquest By King Henry II. Anno MCLXXII. With Some Passages in Their Government a Brief Account of the Rebellion Anno Dom MDCXLI (1675); Somerville’s ABC of Fox Hunting (1903);Waterford Estate Papers from the 19th & early 20th century. Plus the regular range of assorted books of Irish & general interest.

Broadford Books will have:

A selection of new arrivals including first editions of Oscar Wilde, Siegfried  Sassoon and Robert Gibbings, Fine bindings and antiquarian. Also on offer will be one of the most extensive photographic archives of the Northern Ireland troubles in private hands.

Allod Books have for sale: George Boole – mathematical papers; First edition triple-decker novels in original boards, including one by John Keats’ brother-in-law;  Collectors’ edition (250 copies) bibliography of Patrick O’Brian; Litton Falkiner – Illustrations of Irish History; John Clare – first editions and others; a collection (over 20 books) of dictionaries of proverbs and sayings.

Gerard Carroll of Kerry Books, Author and Historian will be in attendance and will be selling and signing copies of his books listed below.

Mr Justice Robert Day (1746-1841): the Diaries ..(published 2005)
The Pocket History of Kerry (2007)
The History of Tralee, Its Charter and Governance (2009)
The Earls of Desmond, the Rise and Fall of a Munster Lordship (2013)

Finally, we will have an author that we know only as Rose, who will be launching her first book and signing copies on Sunday at the Fair. Who knows? It could be a bestseller!

See our ad on Saturday in the Irish Times and we are now also on Facebook and Twitter.

For more info. call Eddie Murphy
Mob. 087-2567908
Or Email:-lyonshillbooks@eircom.net
www.dublincitybookfair.com

For more info. call
Jim Vallely, Email:-craobh@btinternet.com

28th January – AGM and Dorothee Herman on the Offaly History trip to Germany
 in April 2015 –an illustrated account. Refreshments to follow.

8th February – Brig. General Jim Cullen on ‘The military strategy of the 1916
 Leaders’.

19th February – Edenderry History Seminar on ‘Exploring 1916: a Midlands
perspective’.

14th March – The Tullamore incident with Michael Byrne

20th March – 100th anniversary of the Tullamore Incident
For more details contact: OFFALY HISTORY, Bury Quay, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Telephone: 057-9321421

Opening hours: 9-4.30 Monday-Friday Office and Family History

Thursdays 7.30p.m.- 10.30 p.m. Library evening

Web site: www.offalyhistory.com and Email: info@offalyhistory.com

Tracing your Irish Ancestors Conferences with the Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast

The details for Ulster Historical Foundation’s next Tracing your Irish Ancestors family history conferences are now available.

These events are aimed at both the dedicated family historian and those who may prefer to spend more time savouring the enchanting landscape and historic sites of their ancestors.

The programmes will comprise an engaging and entertaining mix of research in the archives with the help of the Foundation’s experienced genealogists, talks from acknowledged experts and a variety of tours and day trips, all making for a memorable experience.

Highlights include: visits to Titanic Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway, the National Archives in Dublin and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast, the famous Walls of Derry and the hills of Donegal, dinner at Belfast’s historic Reform Club and afternoon tea at Barons Court, home of the Duke of Abercorn.

The Foundation is currently offering a special ‘Early Bird’ registration offer: sign up to attend either the Summer Conference or the Autumn Conference before the 31st January 2016 for only £699.99! (The price after 31st January will be £749.99).

So why not banish those winter blues and lift your spirits by booking a place on Tracing Your Irish Ancestors? You will be very welcome. For more information please visit the following websites:

Summer Conference – 15th to 22nd June 2016

www.ancestryireland.com/family-history-conference/summer/

Autumn Conference – 4th to 10th September 2016

www.ancestryireland.com/family-history-conference/autumn/

If you have any queries please email: enquiry@uhf.org.uk

Testimonial from 2015 conference attendees:

Loved this conference last month and so glad I visited the Antrim coast. Wonderfully organized and learned so much history. Highly recommend

Maureen Hanlon, California, USA

What a wonderful week this was, I cannot believe just how many places that we all visited together, thank you so much to everyone involved in all the hard work for giving us such a wonderful time, I also met up with many new friends.

Kay Howard, Essex, England

This conference was extraordinary. It was exceptionally well organized by the most accommodating and professional people – not to mention their wonderful sense of humour. Although I wasn’t able to learn any more about my own ancestors, I did learn a great deal and have new sources of information to explore. Then perhaps another visit to Belfast is in my future. Thank you for a memorable experience.

Jacque Leeper, Georgia, USA

If it is as wonderful and helpful as your September family history conference, everyone is in for a great time. Everything was great from our guides on the tours, to helpful staff at PRONI and the other places of records/deeds/archives … I now have an understanding of where to look, where to go, and best of all, I was travelling through the same countryside as my ancestors had lived. Met some interesting people in my co-attendees of the conference and some great staff from UHF. Thanks to all of them and wishing the new folks good success! Oh, and bring clothes a bit baggy because the food was wonderful!!!

Jane Jackson, Ontario, Canada

1916 App now available

Step into County Wicklow 100 years ago by Catherine Wright

The app WicklowLife1916 is now available to download free of charge on android phones or tablets from the Playstore and on apple phones or ipads from the App Store.  

Everyday life in Wicklow

In this app we hope to evoke a sense of everyday life in County Wicklow during the year of the Rising through weekly updates of newspaper snippets featuring local news stories, advertisements and events as presented in the two main County Wicklow newspapers of the day –The Wicklow People and The Wicklow News-Letter and Arklow Reporter.  You may find these snippets sometimes quirky, often poignant and on occasion quite amusing!  

Varied subjects

Subjects covered in this edition include a report on a violent incident on an Aughrim farm, a school attendance case in Enniskerry, an eccentric character in Shillelagh, a concert in Tinahely and Christmas in the workhouse. Interesting adverts also feature, including anti-dandruff shampoo, treatment for cold weather ailments, 1916 bedroom furniture and Butler’s Dentist & Chemist in Wicklow Town. 

County Wicklow Archives Service

The 1916 WicklowLife App is the work of the Wicklow County Archives Service, and Wicklow County Council and material is taken from the County Archives collection.  The app was developed by Showoff – a Wicklow-based app development company.

County Wicklow 1916 Commemorative Programme

The app project is part of the Wicklow County Council 2016 Steering Group commemoration programme.  Please see www.wicklow2016.com for our programme of events for the coming year.  

This series was originally commissioned and broadcast by BBC Northern Ireland television with support from the Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund. The series was produced by Below the Radar TV and has received much critical acclaim. It has now been produced on DVD by Authentic Ulster.

EPISODE I: TAKING ROOT The first episode of this series traces the story of the Scottish ministers who first established the Presbyterian Church on Irish soil and their struggle for religious liberty throughout the turbulent seventeenth century.

EPISODE II: SEEDS OF LIBERTY Episode two considers the extraordinary contribution made by Ulster Presbyterians to America’s struggle for liberty and how revolution in America and France inspired radical Presbyterians in Ulster to rise up against the Crown in 1798.

EPISODE III: UNION AND DIVISION The final episode explores the ways in which Ulster’s Presbyterians began to move away from their radical past to become part of the establishment in a new Northern Ireland state and looks at the role of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland today.

This DVD is priced at just £15.99 so if you are interested in purchasing a copy please visit our online store at:

http://www.booksireland.org.uk/store/all-departments/the-story-of-ulsters-presbyterians?utm_source=emailcampaign332&utm_medium=phpList&utm_content=textemail&utm_campaign=Christmas+News+from+the+Ulster+Historical+Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last Book Fair of 2015 takes place on Sunday, 6th December, in the Tara Towers Hotel. Doors open at 11am and the Fair runs until 5pm. Admission is €2.00.

We will have approx 20 dealers and our regular bookbinder, Phil Furlong. Free valuations will be on offer by many of the exhibitors.  We have a full list of dates for 2016 which will be distributed as  bookmark to those attending the Fair. (So you may plan your holidays next year without missing any of the Fairs!)  We wish to thank everyone, exhibitors and collectors who supported the Book Fair during the year and wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and look forward to seeing all in the New Year.

While there are many thousands of books on offer of all genres, listed below are some of the rarer items which will be for sale. So get in early so as not to be disappointed.

LARACOR BOOKS (046-9431660) will have the following items for sale:
 Griffith’s Valuations for the Counties Cavan (x 4 parts), Clare (x 5), Cork (x 5), Galway (x 3), 
Kerry (x 2), Kings Co./Offaly (x 1), Leitrim (x 3), Limerick (x 2), Longford (x 2), Mayo (x 6), Monaghan (x 3), Roscommon (x 3), Sligo (x 2), Tipperary (x 2), Waterford (x 3), Westmeath (x 3), Wexford (x 1), Wicklow (x 4)
 Original parts in blue paper wrappers, dated 1849-1858
. A small collection of first editions by Lord Dunsany, all in dustjackets:
 The Fourth Book of Jorkens, nd [1948];
 The Strange Journeys of Colonel Polders, 1950;
 The Little Tales of Smethers, 1952;
 Jorkens borrows another Whiskey, 1954.
 Dublin Opinion – many original issues from 1930s, 1940s, 1950s.

James Howell Rare Books will be offering the following for sale: The Tain,

 translated by Thomas Kinsella from the Irish Tain Bo Cuailnge with Brush Drawings by Louis Le Brocquy. Ist Edn in slipcase, 1969. Inscribed by Thomas Kinsella and Louis Le Brocquy

. Fishing – 

The Autobiography of the late Salmo Salar, Esq., comprising a narrative of the life, personal adventure, and death of a Tweed Salmon. Edited by a Fisherman [By G.Rooper] London 1867. From the Library of Dermot Earl of Mayo with his Bookplate. Inscribed by the Author to fellow angler and author Francis Francis.


 Three Candles Press

Burke, Seamus, Patrick O’Connor Painter of Portraits, Illustrated with seventeen plates, Dublin at the Sign of the Three Candles, n.d (1941)

 Sci Fi

Adams, Robert
 The First twelve volumes in the Horseclans series. The first UK hardback edition in Dust Wrappers. Originally published in paperback in the United States.

Dave Downes of Dublin Bookbrowsers has the following for sale:-
Cuala Press Christmas cards; Harry Kernoff woodcuts; J.J. Walsh’s Recollection of a Rebel 1st ed. 1944  SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR; Richard Doyle Manuscript letter Signed with Self portrait of the Artist circa 1843; Original 1940’s photo of Maureen O’Hara with Pat the Cope Gallagher; a variety of books ideal as Christmas presents.

John Donohue is offering the following:-
1/ A signed copy of Flora Mitchell’s “Vanishing Dublin”.

 2/ A framed appointment to the Irish Army in 1944 signed by De Valera, 
Sean T. O’Kelly and Oscar Traynor.

 3/ “Ten Thousand Saints” signed presentation copy by Hubert Butler.

 4/ An original typed letter signed by The O’Rahilly and dated December 
1915.

 5/ “My Left Foot” signed copy by Christy Brown, a genuinely scarce item.

Kieran O’Brien Books of Wexford will have:

A collection of Irish, English and ancient coins, including year sets, proof sets, Pearse 10/= proofs, hammered silver coins and Roman denarii.

A full set of Phillips Irish Patriots cards, some sailing and equine books, and The Works of Alexander Pope, 1757, full set of 9 volumes.

Arrogant Trespass by Billy Colfer signed 1st edition, The Wexford Gentry 2 Vols, R Murphy & A Kavanagh, each vol signed by both, 1st editions.

Orwell Books of Dublin will have:-

A rare and charming Seamus Heaney item, “Midsummer Feast: Poetry and Prose for the Midsummer Feast at Cannwood House2002”, Incline Press, beautifully produced on Zerkall handmade paper, with contributions from the extended Heaney clan, including ten items by Seamus himself, and others from his wife Marie, their daughter Catherine, Marie’s sister Polly Devlin, her brother Barry and several others, one of a limited edition of  230 copies. ‘This book is an expression of love and a celebration of a family and their friends’  This copy is signed by four of the contributors: Seamus Heaney , his wife Marie, their daughter Catherine and Marie’s brother, Barry Devlin. Also an immaculate copy of  Sebastian Barry’s suppressed novellas ‘Time out of Mind’ and ‘Strappado Square’, withdrawn due to a threatened legal action and exceedingly scarce; a  special copy of Brendan Kennelly’s ‘Love Cry’(Figgis 1972)  with the first poem written out in manuscript by the poet, opposite the printed page; Aa signed and numbered copy of Eavan Boland’s  ‘In Her Own  Image’ (Arlen House) and a comprehensive selection of fine books illustrated by Louis Le Brocquy.

Eddie and Kay Murphy – lyonshillbooks@eircom.net and Tel: 087-2567908
and Jim Vallely – craobh@btinternet.com