Summer series of Irish history slated for Portlaoise libraries this summer
The Story of Us 1926
LAOIS Local Studies and Portlaoise Library have announced their 2026 Summer Series of History Talks; the talks will take place in Portlaoise library at 7pm on Thursday evenings from the 9th to 30th July.
The series will cover a broad range of topics, from the 1926 Census and what it reveals about Laois and Ireland in the post-revolutionary period, to the story of Portlaoise man Joe Dowling, a member of Casement’s Irish Brigade, who was sentenced to death, refused amnesty following the War of Independence and not released until 1924. Attendees will learn about conflict and murder in the coal mining-district of South Laois and Kilkenny in the 1830s and the conditions anti-treaty republican internees experienced in County Kildare.
The first talk in the series, Special Powers: Civil War internment in Newbridge Barracks and Tintown Camp 1922-24, will take place on Thursday 9th July at 7pm in Portlaoise Library. Historian James Durney will look at Civil War Internment in County Kildare.
James Durney has authored over twenty books on Irish history, specialising in the revolutionary period and Irish military experiences. A respected historian and media consultant, he has contributed to numerous documentaries including TG4's Mobs Mheiriceá. He served as the Kildare Historian-in-Residence for County Kildare's Decade of Commemorations Committee (2015-2017) and works in Kildare County's Local Studies, Genealogy, and Archives Department.
The second talk in the series The 1926 Census; the Story of Us will take place on Thursday 16th July at 7pm. Historian Ida Milne, who contributed to The Story of Us, will talk about the significance of the census and the crucial insights it provides into early Free State society on a national and local level.
The third talk in the summer series will take place on Thursday 23rd July at 7pm. Historian Terry Dunne will examine the assassination of Thomas Potts, a Castlecomer colliery manager shot dead in the Spring of 1832 and the execution of Laois man Red Ned Delaney found guilty of the act seven years later. The talk will examine the intense social conflict in the coal mining area straddling the south-east of Laois and north-east of Kilkenny in the 1820s and 1830s, putting events into the wider context of social change.
Joe Dowling: the Maryborough Man in the U-boat, the final talk in the series will take place on Thursday 30th July at 7pm. Local historian Teddy Fennelly will share the incredible and little-known story of Joe Dowling, the Portlaoise man who landed off the coast of Clare from a German U-Boat in April 1918. This event led to claims by Dublin Castle of a Sinn Fein conspiracy with the German Empire, better known as The German Plot, resulting in widespread arrests of Sinn Fein leaders and the strengthening of the physical force republicanism that led to the War of Independence.
The history talk series is funded by the Decade of Centenaries and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
