Lecture to focus on Offaly born piper's role in Chicago Police Department
Clonmacnoise to be focus of Monday night's talk at Offaly History Centre in Tullamore
TWO lectures will be given this week at Offaly History Centre in Bury Quay, Tullamore.
On this Saturday, April 12, at 3 pm, Frank and Seamus Kelly will give a talk entitled "Bernard Delaney (1854-1923) – Offaly piper conquers America."
This time in his home town of Tullamore. Delaney suffered the loss of three of his four children and his wife in the late 1870s and was forced to leave his country in search of hope and a better life in the New World. Delaney was a master of the Uileann Pipes. The talk will focus on his life, the story behind his enrolment into the elite Irish Music Club of the Chicago Police Department and his legacy.
Delaney's musical heritage will be played at the event by Frank Kelly and musical friends.
Frank Kelly is from Lusmagh and has written articles about Delaney for the Fleadh Cheoil Clár and the Comhaltas magazine Treoir.
Seamus Kelly is from Kildare with Birr connections. He has researched Barney's life and written the book Bernard 'Barney' Delaney (1854-1923) Offaly and Chicago Piper. Copies available from Offaly History Centre.
On Monday, April 14, at 7.30pm, Con Manning will speak on "Clonmacnoise and its churches."
Clonmacnoise is among the very most important early medieval monasteries/ecclesiastical sites in Ireland and has a remarkable group of churches, high crosses and the largest collection of cross-slabs in Ireland or Britain. The lecture 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.
All welcome to both lectures.