Page 6 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

CHAIRPERSON’S INTRODUCTION

generously represented in this particular volume by Canon
Robert Jennings’s account of a walk which he led (and which
some of us may well be tempted to follow on our own account)
from Calary church towards the Sugarloaf, by way of
Ballyreamon Common. Canon Jennings is one of our most
venerable and distinguished members, and we are particularly
pleased to have his work represented here. Other aspects of
the county’s archaeological heritage are discussed in an
extract, dealing with Bronze Age burials, from Dr Eoin Grogan
and Dr Tom Hillery’s A guide to the archaeology of Co Wicklow.
We are pleased to be able to make this valuable, and
regrettably out- of-print work available once more, and indeed I
am happy to confirm that the full text of the 1993 publication will
shortly be available on our website.

One of my personal concerns throughout my involvement in
the Society has been to raise the profile of women, both as
subjects and as practitioners of local history. ‘It is the Home
Rule Bill that has done that’ discusses the role of Wicklow
rd
women in the campaign against the 3 Home Rule Bill, and in
particular their response to the Ulster Declaration of 1912.
Meanwhile, Liz Goldthorpe’s essay on Averil Deverell offers an
insight into the local connections of a pioneering figure in Irish
legal history - one of the first females to be called to the Bar,
and the first woman to practice as a barrister in independent
Ireland. Liz’s depiction of the private woman behind the
formidable public face whets the appetite for the full-length
biography of Deverell on which she is currently working.

Finally, we return to the present-day activities of our own
Society. ‘To Clon and back’ describes our 2018 three-day spring
trip, in which we visited Youghal, toured Michael Collins country
and Cork city, before returning home via Roscrea Castle and
Damer House. The account, like the event itself and the well-

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