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2227 Directory 2019_directory06 21/01/2020 14:23 Page 40 GUILD NEWS 2019 Activities New publications Four books were published by the Ulster Historical Foundation in 2019. The late Eugene O’Callaghan’s autobiography, Busmen in the Firing Line, is a vivid and lively account of a critical period in our recent history. Keeping the buses running during the years of the Troubles was a priority which came at huge personal cost. For the busmen the experience was attritional: the entire fleet of buses was destroyed and 17 men were killed simply for turning up for work. Protecting your members from death is not a normal part of a union official’s brief, but it was Eugene’s number one priority. Setting aside their differences O’Callaghan and union colleagues worked alongside Werner Heubeck and management to keep the drivers safe. Pictured at the launch in St George’s Church are Eugene’s daughter Patricia O’Callaghan and John Dallat MLA consistently a voice of reason and humanity, endlessly challenging the widely-held assumption that it was normal and right to ‘look after one’s own people’ and ‘do down the other side’. As a torchbearer for human rights, non-violence and respect for the dignity of others, she proved herself to be decades ahead of other politicians and political parties, as many of her original ideas have come to be enshrined in law in Northern Ireland. The book was launched at Queen’s University Belfast on 3 October. The author also delivered a lunchtime lecture on Sheelagh Murnaghan at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland on 7 October. O’Callaghan also represented the ‘General Workers’ in manufacturing, tackling issues affecting pay and conditions with the same passion. Even in retirement Eugene did not rest, becoming a strong advocate for retired union members. The issue of busmen’s pensions came to dominate Eugene’s final years. Frustrated at what he saw as mismanagement, incompetence and indifference, he campaigned to rectify an historical oversight in respect of their pension contributions. Blunt, resolute and always on the side of the worker, O’Callaghan spoke truth to power in a real way – to benefit the lives of those whom he served. On 17 September the Foundation launched Busmen in the Firing Line in St George’s Church, Belfast. A second launch was held on 1 October in Crossmaglen, County Armagh, where Eugene was born. Ruth Illingworth’s biography, Sheelagh Murnaghan – Stormont’s Only Liberal MP, introduces us to a remarkable person. Sheelagh Murnaghan was the first female barrister to practise in Northern Ireland; a talented sportswoman who played hockey for Ulster and Ireland; the only Liberal Party MP 1961–69) in the 50-year history of the Northern Ireland Parliament. In a country riven by sectarianism, she was 40 2227 Directory 2019_directory06 21/01/2020 14:23 Page 41 DIRECTORY OF IRISH FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH Transatlantic Lives: The Irish Experience in Colonial America, This elegantly-designed edition reproduces the book in edited by Linde Lunney, James Quinn and William Roulston, facsimile along with the original illustrations, most of them now was another autumn publication. This volume included 59 in full colour. The book was launched at Cutts House, biographical essays from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary Coleraine, the offices of the Honourable the Irish Society, on of Irish Biography, detailing the careers of a selection of Irish 18 December. emigrants to North America in the colonial period (including the British territories that would later become Canada). Those chosen for inclusion were a representative sample of some of the more notable figures among these emigrants. Colonial administrators, soldiers and clergymen predominated, but the selection also included educators, doctors, writers, artists, printers, merchants and even a (female) pirate to give some sense of the diversity of such emigrants, and their varying contributions to the economic and cultural development of the colonies. Most of these stayed in the colonies, but a sufficient number returned to Ireland, providing some evidence for the contention that emigration to the colonies was not always an irrevocable decision. The publication of the book was featured during a lunchtime lecture in PRONI by Dr Linde Lunney titled ‘Connections and Coincidence in Emigration’ on 15 November. Books by our members and friends Our long-time Guild member Frances Bach from Yakima, Washington State, USA, has published a book on the story of her ancestors from County Londonderry – Never to be Heard From Again! Searching for the McCurrys of Myroe. The title of the book comes from a comment made by her father many years ago. He was speaking about some cousins of his own father who had left Ireland in the 1870s and 1880s and remarked: “and they were never heard from again”. This increasingly fascinated Frances: how could three grown men just disappear like that and no-one know what happened to them? It would be many years before she understood the dynamics of the time – difficulties with travel, communication, literacy, lifespan, and the kind of daily struggle immigrants had to contend with in a new country. Her persistence allowed her to discover not only what happened to the three cousins, but to Eighty years after it was first published, the Foundation many other branches of our enormous extended family as well. reprinted a hugely important work, The Londonderry Plantation 1609–41: The City of London and the Plantation in Ulster by T. Our good friend in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Gary Hawbaker has W. Moody. This publication was the first seriously scholarly published The Camp Kettle. September 21, 1861–May, 15, attempt to understand what actually happened in the 1862: Newspaper of the Roundhead Regiment, 100th Londonderry Plantation; it was published at a time when Irish Pennsylvania Volunteers: with selected biographies of members historical writing was entering a new phase with a more of the 100th Pennsylvania and the 8th Michigan (2019). In this ‘scientific’ approach to historical writing and research, with hefty volume, Gary has provided a transcription of the first 12 Moody and his peers leading the way. In researching his book, issues of The Camp Kettle. In addition, pension records for 75 Moody drew extensively on historical archives in the City of soldiers were researched and valuable information found in London, including records which perished subsequently in the them has been included. Of special interest are the original Blitz. As Professor James Stevens Curl comments in his new soldier letters that families sent to the Pension Office to prove Foreword to the work: ‘So Moody’s great book remains of that a son had provided for the family before or while he was in singular significance in the history of Ulster, and although I was the service which were never returned to the family. privileged to carry on research into the Londoners’ Plantation Background on other newspapers printed by soldiers during the well past 1641, I acknowledge the integrity of Moody’s Civil War is included as well as references to The Camp Kettle scholarship and industry in laying the foundations of proper found in other newspapers across the United States. Where source-based narrative, free from speculation, hoary mythology, available, images of the soldier and of his gravestone are shown. and cant.’ 41 2227 Directory 2019_directory06 21/01/2020 14:23 Page 42 DIRECTORY OF IRISH FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH Centre for Migration Studies praises the editor’s ‘expert contextualising commentary’ and notes that the letters demonstrate that ‘migrant correspondents remained very conscious of the homeplace’. Many of the letters are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (where they are catalogued under references D1497 and D3666), though others are in the editor’s possession. A series of appendices to the book contain much invaluable genealogical information on the families concerned. In his Introduction Graham pays tribute to two longstanding friends of his who passed away in 2018 – Dr Eull Dunlop and Dr Brian Trainor. Eull contributed an ‘Afterword’ to the volume, composed while in Antrim Area Hospital shortly before he died. Events Following the death of our Emeritus Research Director in August 2018 at the age of 90, the Ulster Historical Foundation opened a fund to establish the Dr Brian Trainor Memorial Lecture. Many people generously supported this and on 26 September 2019 the inaugural lecture was held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland before a capacity audience, including Dr Trainor’s widow Pilar and daughters Rosana and Katrina. The lecture was delivered by Cormac Ó Gráda, Professor (Emeritus) of University College Dublin, who has published extensively on Irish economic history and on famine, and was titled: ‘Irish emigration: new sources, new approaches, new results’. Professor Ó Gráda prefaced his talk by pointing out that Dr Trainor was always interested in the history of Irish Highly respected local historian Graham Mawhinney (the 2019 emigration, and particularly in those who left Ulster before the High Sheriff of County Londonderry) was the editor of The Great Famine, and praised him for his efforts in making Graham Letters (1792 –1907): Correspondence Relating to the archives accessible to all. The lecture itself reviewed recent and Graham Family of “Dunarnon”, Owenreagh, Draperstown, ongoing work on emigration from the island as a whole, Co. Londonderry (Moyola Books, 2019). This attractively highlighting the role of new material and new techniques, and produced and handsomely illustrated volume, the product of the new perspectives they offer. many years of effort, includes transcripts of 91 letters written from a variety of locations, including Cork in Ireland, Ohio and Pennsylvania in the USA and Melbourne in Australia, to name a few. With the exception of the first letter of 1792 and the last of 1907 the letters date from a 50-year period between 1839 and 1889.