Auctions of land, property and livestock in the Castleisland district over an eighteen year period, 1879-1897, were noted down by Michael O’Donohoe during the many hours he spent researching local newspapers in the County Library Tralee. His neat, concise notes (IE MOD-2-2.1) cover less than one page yet open up volumes in Irish history. …… Continue Reading
Barony and Civil Parish Maps of the Castleisland district
Michael O’Donohoe approached the ordnance survey map of the Castleisland district in a creative way to help discern, at a glance, who owned what and where in the nineteenth century. It is a very useful guide for anyone interested in history and genealogy or for those new to research who want to understand the…… Continue Reading
Rev Thomas Radcliff’s Agricultural Survey of Kerry in 1814
Michael O’Donohoe’s papers include an extract from Rev Thomas Radcliff’s agricultural survey of the Castleisland district conducted more than two hundred years ago. The extract, transcribed below, captures social as well as agricultural change. Kerry in 1814 At the commencement of this Barony, in its nearest approach to Killarney, is an extensive tract of…… Continue Reading
The Castleisland Act 17 June 1824
In a letter to his wife from Tralee dated 25 March 1824, Daniel O’Connell wrote, ‘I came here yesterday about one o’clock to attend a consultation with Lord Headley, etc, on an act of parliament for dividing Castleisland among the six gentleman of whom Lady Headley, his mother, is one’.1 A nineteenth century correspondence…… Continue Reading
The Diary of Robert O’Kelly
A Diary of Items of Interest A copy of The Diary of Robert O’Kelly is held in the collection.1 Robert O’Kelly was born in Castleisland on the 18th June 1835. He described himself as ‘no sort of scholar’ and acknowledged that his memoir was ‘imperfectly written’: If I was or had any sort…… Continue Reading
Castleisland Charter school
The O’Donohoe Collection contains a number of articles and references to the Castleisland Charter School which operated in the town for about forty years in the closing decades of the eighteenth century. The material includes Michael O’Donohoe’s summary of the school from its opening on 2 May 1763 until its suppression in 1802.1 …… Continue Reading