"I was always very interested in graveyards"
Dearbhla : Welcome to Past Perspectives : A Westmeath Libraries podcast where we chat with a variety of local historians. We learn what started them on the path towards history, and they'll share some gems of our local history collection. Today Ann McDermott chats to Lorna Farrell from the Aiden Heavey Library, Athlone.
Ann: Hi Lorna, how are you today?
Lorna : Hi Ann, thanks very much for having me here.
Ann: You're very welcome. Now, okay, so do you want to tell us a little about your interest in history? Did you love it from a young age?
Lorna : Yeah, I suppose I always had an interest in our natural environment, more so than history I suppose. I just loved being outside. I was very inquisitive as a child. I’m still very inquisitive as an adult. But then, if I saw a ruin of a building, I loved knowing the story behind it. Or, you know, who lived in old houses that were ruined. I loved
churches I loved graveyards. And I loved asking a lot of questions. So I suppose, as I grew-up I would have asked a lot of questions of my dad and of teachers. And I just I suppose had a natural kind of an interest in it. And and yes, we carried on that when I went to school.
Ann: So were your teachers supportive? Were there any teachers that stood out that you you remember with great fondness?
Lorna: Absolutely. Yes, I'm very lucky. When I started in Castledaly National School, I had Mona. The late Mona O'Connell taught me for most of my primary school years, and her father was the late Liam Cox, a very well known historian from Moate. So she was she was an amazing woman. She was she was a cross teacher and there was no messing in her classroom. So I don't ever really recall her using a book of any description. Everything seemed to come out of her head. She wrote everything on a blackboard and we wrote it into our copy books. But you’d really remember, she had just a wonderful way of teaching. And she brought stories to life. And I suppose when it came to history, she very much took it outside of the classroom.
So if we were learning about kind of walks or reinforcer and he thought of ancient history, I suppose she’d tell us to grab our coats and our copies and she'd bring us through the fields and she would hop gates with us and she’d climb over styles and she sure, she sure just really brought it to life, I suppose. So she took it outside of the classroom, but I think that's what really got my interest.
Ann : She sounds amazing, a great inspiration.
Lorna : Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And yeah, then when I went to secondary school, I had some great teachers there too, but one in particular. And the late Fr. Hipwell had taught me for the Leaving Cert and he was a wonderful man. I loved that, he kind of kept himself to himself. And I remember him saying to one of the students in my class one day .. We asked him why he never went to the staffroom at lunchtime. He always went home. He was a Carmelite priest and he always went home to the dormitories and he said, I don't go to the staffroom because I don't want to hear what the other teachers think of you.
I have my own opinions of you all, and I thought that was great.
Ann : That was brilliant.
Lorna : There was only three or four of us in the whole history class for the Leaving Cert. He had whittled us down by the time we got there. But I think he liked his students to be interested in history, and he didn't care if he liked PE or if you like maths. All he wanted was your interest in his subject and he had a great way of teaching us. He was funny and, like that he was cross too. But he was a great teacher and I think he was delighted when I went on story after my Leaving Cert.
Ann : Yeah, yeah, yeah. You felt he really had inspired you?
Lorna : Absolutely
Ann : So did you pursue your love of history after school?
Lorna : I did, yeah. I wasn't. I wasn't really too sure what I wanted to do after school. I was always big into art and drawing as well. So it was kind of between maybe studying fine art and studying History was a tough decision. Yeah, as well. My family would all be. We'd all be quite artsy, I suppose, and its funny actually, we grew up on a small country road that was our house there were three girls in my house, and it was three girls in the Molloys house down the road. And out of the six of us five went on to study archeology for our B.A. So there must have been something in the air in Castledaly. So I studied archeology and history for my BA in Galway and I lovedmy time there. I had some great teachers and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín really stood out. He was he taught medieval Irish history and he was very funny.
Back in the day. We didn't really have slides as such, but he was a great man for showing us slides featuring himself at various sites around the country. . He was a very interesting man. And Kieran O'Connor, my archaeology lecturer, was very good too. And he was, he was always very scatty. He'd come in with bits of paper under his arms and flowing out of his briefcase. His head wasn't scatter at all. He knew his stuff. Yeah, he was very interesting.
Ann : That's brilliant. And was there any period that was of particular interest to you?
Lorna : Not massively. I suppose, for my Leaving Cert I studied Modern Irish, just modern history. You had to do Irish and European history. And I think by the time I got to Galway to do my BA I was kind of sick of learning about Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and, and even the land War and the Civil War. And so I chose a lot of medieval Irish subjects.
I studied Early Irish script, again under Dáibhí O Cróinin and I suppose subjects like maybe tied in more with archeology so early Irish and early Ireland, I suppose. And then when I went back in 2007 to do my master's degree and I suppose I went towards more modern history then and under Professor Raymond Gillespie, he was my tutor for my master's and I ended up studying social history in the early 1900s. With him like that, I think your teacher can be very influential. He was a great man.
Ann : True. Yeah, that's brilliant. And so have you. Have you written anything? Have you had anything published?
Lorna : I suppose when I was in... No, I've not had anything published. I'll be honest from the start, but I suppose for my M.A. inMaynooth and like I said, I kind of focused on social history of the early 1900s. So I wrote my thesis on, I based it on my great grandfather, Jim Farrell, who was initially from Knockdowney, just outside Moate and was actually buried with his wife's family in Clonmacnoise. So like I said earlier, I was always very interested in graveyards, death, how people are buried, I suppose. I think how people are buried is a great indicator of how sort of society is at the time. That's very true. Yeah. So that was what I looked at and that's what Raymond Gillespie would have helped me I suppose, to look at the customs associated with death and with funerals and what they told you about the people that were still living at the time.
So that's what my thesis is about. And particularly that area my dad is from Ballinahown it's kind of straddles the Offaly Westmeath border. So I had to use sources from Westmeath libraries, from the local stories room here and Offaly libraries. But that whole area, I think there’s something magical about Clonmacnoise.
Ann : Absolutely.
Lorna : The old medieval monastery is one side and the modern graveyard is still in use. My family are, still my dad's family are still buried there. And yes, this is very interesting pieces. I think I'd actually love to go back to do another bit of writing. I think there's still time now.
Ann : Absolutely. That could be in the future. Yeah. And so you work in the library now. So when you started in the library, did you find that your love of history helped you?
Lorna : Yes, very much so. And I suppose I didn't really realize at the time I kind of fell into the job. I didn't really know what I wanted to do and the lady who worked in Moate library was leaving and she mentioned the job coming up to me. So I applied, not really thinking a whole lot about it.
I've always loved books and from the minute I started, really, I got the job and from the minute I started, questions would come in every day from people you know how to do your family tree, how to trace back through the generations, the house that they lived in, you know, what the road was that they lived in back in medieval times, it was nearly every day there was a question. And I didn't realize that was such a big part of the job. It's a lovely part of the job.
Ann : It’s a brilliant part of the job
Lorna : I suppose then there's Heritage Week every year that we always get involved with in the library service. So back when I worked in Moate library, I worked on my own for years, so I would have kind of a few nice projects I ran for Heritage Week. I did one year where it was sharing stories, so it was my self and Anne McEnroe, who worked with me at the time, gathered together some children who were good library users, and we had them interview their grandparents and we put their stories together in the little book and it was just lovely to I think those kids had never asked their grandparents about their time
growing up and how life had changed over the years and there sometimes the little stories that aren't recorded, but they're so important. They're so important, and its lovely to have those kept in in a library for years to come. You know, we've collected photographs for Heritage Week exhibitions and all those little things they've built up a nice collection over the years, and you don't realize at the time how important they are at the time, but I suppose when neither myself or yourself for here anymore hopefully there'll be somebody else looking after the local studies room and they'll appreciate our efforts.
Ann : Absolutely. Yeah. They'll be thankful for all the hard work
Lorna :
And I definitely think it doesn't matter how many courses you do or how many letters you have after your name, you learn so much more in the job. You know that is so true. I know speaking to our Gearoid O Brien who was such a help to me when I was a student and up to the time he retired here, he said he learned so much on the job too, and I learned so much from him, as I'm sure you did as well.
And we learn from people coming into us, members of the public and writers and authors and people who are launching books. We pick little tidbits up from them I suppse all the time that we can use. Then a lot of other people with the research stuff.
Ann : Every day you're learning something new. Uou really do. And so just finally, have you any plans, any projects in the pipeline?
Lorna : yeah, I suppose Ann, over the last couple of years I have worked closely with Seamus O’Brien from Westmeath Archeological and Historical Society, and I think I mentioned earlier that I also love drawing and painting. So he asked me to illustrate two of his articles for the journal that's launched every year in December.
So last year was the first year of it I suppose and this year and when I went to the two book launches, you know, I'm sitting listening to all those of the local historians talking about their work, and I thought, God I'd love to write something again. So I'm not sure what I'd love to write or what period or, but I'd love to write something. So you can hold me to that actually, by this time next year I might have put something down on paper. But in the meantime, I suppose I’ll keep reading and absolutely.
Ann : So you've been combining both your loves.
Lorna : Absolutely. So true.
Ann : Yeah. Okay.
Dearbhla : Thanks very much to Lorna and Ann for that chat. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember to tune in to the next episode and delve further into the world of the local historian. This is Past Perspectives, a Westmeath libraries podcast.
