Page 5 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

Chairperson’s Introduction

I
am delighted to introduce the latest volume of the Greystones
Archaeological & Historical Society Journal. This is our ninth
journal, published in our thirtieth anniversary year, and it is
appropriate therefore that the various contributions should
mirror in different ways several of the Society’s recent
involvements, as well as its achievement in recovering and
celebrating aspects of local Greystones and wider, both county
and national, history.

In his masterly opening contribution, Dr Martin Mansergh
surveys the emergence of national identity and the
development of the new Irish state through the prism of La
Touche – and indeed Mansergh - family history. This essay had
its origin in Dr Mansergh’s stimulating address to the official
dinner of the 2017 La Touche Legacy seminar, the closing event
in our annual (and once more highly successful) History Festival
weekend, which is a collaboration between our own Society and
the La Touche Legacy Committee.

James Scannell’s informative and action-packed account of
the death of imperialist hero, and very occasional local visitor,
Colonel Fred Burnaby, was originally delivered at the
presentation by the Society of a volume of Burnaby’s writings to
Greystones Library, while GAHS member Colin Short’s
examination of Wicklow’s industrial history was prompted by a
paper on the subject delivered in the course of the Society’s
winter lecture series.

The ‘archaeological’ element of the Society’s mission is

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