Offaly History lectures to focus on music and Clonmacnoise

The extraordinary life of an Offaly piper who conquered America will be retold in both song and story at a very interesting lecture at the Offaly History Centre in Bury Quay on Saturday next,, April 12, at 3pm, which is being hosted as part of the Tullamore Tradfest programme of events.

Kildare native, Sean Kelly, who has connections to Birr, will deliver a talk on the life of Bernard Delaney, who left Tullamore in the hope of a better life in New York in the late 1870's, having suffered the loss of his wife and three of his four children, and went on to become a master of the Uileann Pipes.

The talk will focus on Delaney's life, the story behind his enrolment into the elite Irish Music Club of the Chicago Police Department and his legacy.

The rich musical heritage of Bernard Delaney will be played at the event by Frank Kelly from Lusmagh and musical friends.

On Monday night next, April 14, Offaly History Centre will host another lecture, with Con Manning delivering a talk entitled 'Clonmacnoise and its churches'

Conleth Manning worked for nearly forty years as an archaeologist with the National Monuments Service. During that time he directed excavations at Clonmacnoise as well as at many other monuments around the country. He has a special interest in medieval churches and castles and has published widely on aspects of the medieval and post-medieval periods in Ireland.

His lecture, which begins at 7.30pm, will focus on the building history of the churches, the layout of the main churches and the crosses and the royal patronage involved. The cathedral, built in 909, is the oldest exactly dated mortared stone church in Ireland and the largest pre-Romanesque church in the country.