Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A Westmeath Libraries podcast where we chat with a variety of local historians. We'll learn what started them on the path towards history and they'll share some gems of our local history collection
Edel : So Hello and welcome to our new local History podcast series, where we hope to introduce you all to our service and to the many people who use it. Today I am speaking with Ruth Illingworth from Mullingar. She is a renowned historian and tour guide and is known by many in the town as one of our greats when it comes to local history.
Ruth, first of all, big question. What was it that drew you to local history?
Ruth : I think it started when I was in school. I'd always a passion for history. And obviously the Irish and international history of studying at school and elsewhere interested me. But I became more and more interested in the local history and how, you know, even great events like the War of Independence or the First World War or many other events had impacted on Mullingar.
I grew up in the town. I became involved with historical societies here in the 1980s, and just going around the county. I just developed an interest in the story of Westmeath and how the towns, how the villages developed, everything like that.
Edel : Okay, you have a number of publications to your name. Far too long for us to even begin to start listing, newspapers, books, other books that you contribute articles to? How do you choose the topics from your vast knowledge? How do you like to choose a topic for your next book or your next paper? Is it because of something you're really interested in or a topic you want to learn more about yourself?
Ruth : Sometimes a particular thing will interest me. For example, I've always had a great interest in the railway station in Mullingar. I remember attending talks by the late Michael Conlon one of our great historians where he talked about the railway. And that was why I've done tours of the railway station and written a few articles about it. In some of the cases, the book I did on Mullingar History and Society, and that, these were commissioned.
I was asked to do the study of Mullingar by the History Press back in 2007. So and then I followed that up with another book and then when it came to writing the Little Book of Westmeath which again was for History Press, I actually got in touch with them because I had noticed that they were beginning to do a series on the county of Ireland and I suggested that if they got around to doing Westmeath I'd be happy to do it for them, and they accepted that. So the way would be sometimes I'm asked to write about particular things, sometimes its just an interest.
Edel : So sometimes you're actually commissioned. Or it's not just your own work, it's people come and ask me to produce this stuff because of your reputation.
Ruth : That's correct, yes.
Edel : So to get the reputation, do you have to be qualified to be a local historian or is it really long years of hard work that gets you to there.
Ruth : You don't you don't need to even, I think, to be qualified as a historian. I happen to be have a degree in history. And some of the other local historians here have, but others have not that. Its just, I think you have to have an interest. You have to have a certain skill in kind of research to know where to find things and have a sort of, I think, a passion for what you're studing, what you're interested in.
Edel : The local history room, you are a regular user, what is it about the history room that you like to use. What brings you in? is it the books or what is it.
Ruth : It's everything that's there and it's a lovely room. I remember back in the days before this new library was built, when the local studies room was up in the old library headquarters up on the Dublin road, itself an incredibly historic building. And I used to love going in there and sitting there just looking through what was available. And its the same thing for the local studies room here, because there is just so much there to be to be looked to, to be to be found. And I'm always finding new things there.
Edel : So you even you yourself find new stuff all the time in there?
Ruth : Yes. Yes. And it's a great place in which to work because it's quiet. It's you know, you've got the life of a very busy library going on around you. But it's just slightly apart from where one is. And I do very much enjoy it. And it's very well set up for study, for research.
Edel : Are you currently working on a secret project or are do you find are you always working on something?
Ruth : I tend to be always working on something. I've got two projects in hand just at the moment. One is a piece which will be part of the Westmeath Historical Society's annual conference, which will be on the 23rd of March in the Greville Arms Hotel in Mullingar, and will probably then appear in the Historical Society's journal later in the year. And it's about the way the main streets of Mullingar from bridge to bridge developed over the centuries.
The other project I'm working on at the moment is to do with a publication which will be coming out in the autumn, the Follies Trust. Last year, work was done on restoring the beautifully historic mausoleum of the Malone family, at Kilbixy, a church nearby Ballynacarrigy, and they're going to put together a publication on the story of that mausoleum and the Malone family. And I've been asked to contribute a chapter on the history of the Malone's. So I'm working on that at the moment, and there are other projects I have and fror various walking tours that I'll be doing in the town during the year.
Edel : To be a local historia then, if you want to get something published, you don't have to go up to big presses? can can you get something published locally if it's considered good enough or?
Ruth : I think you can. Yes, some people go in for self publication. In the past local newspapers like The Westmeath Examiner and the Topic have helped with publications, like the recent book on the Famine graveyards in Mullingar by Seamus O'Brien. And I think that's was done by the Topic newspaper. And we have a number of histories of villages, towns that have been put together by book committees with local printing presses and thinking of Peter Wallace's history of Ballynacarrigy which came out about ten years ago. Andthe late Tom Bell's history of Castletown Geoghegan and the the history of St Loman's Hospital, which was put together by a committee of retired and working staff members there. So it's possible it can be expensive, but but it can be it can be done.
Edel : With regard to your ownworks, is there any particular book or article that you really enjoyed working on? Is there something you still remember?
Ruth : Well, I think I enjoyed all of them. But I think the first one on Mullingar history and Guide, I particularly enjoyed that. I think the one that I found the possibly the most interesting and the most enjoyable was the one that had really has had nothing to do with Westmeath, which is a biography of Sheelagh Murnaghan, who was a Liberal Member of Parliament in the old Northern Ireland Parliament in the 1960s, represent Queen's University.
She was also a lawyer. She was captain of the Ireland Women's Hockey Team. I was commissioned to do her biography by members of the now defunct party. One of the members lives locally, so that's how I got asked to do it and that I found incredibly interesting. And the library here was helpful because and I was able to kind of sit at the computer here, use the free access to newspaper archives and of course to the Northern Ireland House of Commons or the parliamentary debates. What they called Hansard were all digitalized. So whereas in the past I'd've had to go up to to Belfast I was able to sit in the library here and read through all the material there cost me nothing.
Edel : So one other thing you're well known for is your tours of Mullingar. I've heard tales of the Halloween tours being really, really popular.
Ruth : Yes, that's the The Ghost Walks that I do around Halloween, which I started doing some years ago, and I even had one in the library here around Halloween 2022. I did an afternoon talk, and on the weekend and the Friday before the Halloween weekend. And that is because there are so many fascinating stories being told by people over the years about the haunted buildings of this town, including the art center beside us here and the the former military barracks. And we're probably the only town that's been invaded by an entire army of ghosts, which happened back in 1686.
Edel : An entire army of ghosts?
Ruth : Oh yes, there were people ranin panic into the town center complaining that they had seen 100 men and some said were 2 to 300 men marching four abreast coming across what was called the Friars Mill, the fording point along the River Brosna, close to where Cusack Park is now, and the constable of the town gaols, or the castle, sent out four men to try and find these invading soldiers. And as one of them said, you know, meeting none of these apparations, he went back to bed and there was an inquiry held in the then court house, which was where the Greville Arms Hotel is, to try and find out what was going on. They concluded it was kind of sort of people had gone a bit mad. It was around Halloween too, back in 1686, but there were people who were absolutely convinced that they had seen all these people on horseback coming into the town carrying guns.
Edel : And that that's definitely a story that needs to be told again. Thank you so much for joining me for this podcast, there's justh one last question I want to ask you. And it's something I want to ask everyone that's involved. What is the one item that you would love to bring home with you from the collection that we have here in the local history room?
Ruth : There's such a lot here.
Edel : Just one.
Ruth : I think it would probably be the very large volume that was published a couple of years ago, The Atlas of the Irish, the sort of War of Independence, the Revolutionary Period. That's a magnificent production. And that is one I think, that I would take home.
Edel : That's your Take Home item. Again Ruth, thank you so much for joining me for this podcast. I thank you very much for your constant knowledge that you always make available to us at any time. Thank you.
Ruth : Thank you.