Memory and legacy focus
The fourth annual Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School, taking place from September 16 to 19, will focus this year on memory and legacy.
Over the four days, the Thomas MacDonagh Museum in Cloughjordan will host talks, genealogy workshops and an art exhibition exploring the revolutionary generation and the ways in which their lives continue to inform how Ireland understands its past and present.
On Saturday, September 19, Dr Joe MacDonagh, a grandnephew of Thomas MacDonagh and grandson of Joe MacDonagh, Sinn Féin TD for North Tipperary in the First Dáil, and Michelle Drysdale, a great-granddaughter of Thomas MacDonagh, will join Pat Leahy, Political Editor of The Irish Times and a longtime friend of the MacDonagh family, for a discussion about family, memory and history.
Joe and Michelle will talk about their family histories and their experiences of growing up as descendants of Thomas MacDonagh. They will also reflect on how the family has remembered Thomas MacDonagh and those that followed him.
After the discussion, the museum will present the MacDonagh family with a detailed family tree compiled as part of its work to document the family’s history and connections across generations.
Dr Joe MacDonagh is a chartered psychologist and former President of the Psychological Society of Ireland, the professional body for psychologists in Ireland. He is a lecturer and research academic whose work has been published and presented internationally. He is also a Tipperary hurling supporter and will be hoping for another County Championship for Kilruane MacDonaghs.
Michelle Drysdale lives in Galway and is a primary school teacher at Killeeneen National School in Clarinbridge. The school has a particular connection to the events of 1916. Arms were stored in the attic of the original school building in preparation for the Rising, and the area was one of the locations associated with the beginning of the Galway Rising.
Michelle shares stories and artefacts from the MacDonagh and Gifford families with her pupils and places particular importance on passing the family history on to her own children.
Pat Leahy is Political Editor of The Irish Times and the author of The Price of Power: Inside Ireland's Crisis Coalition and Showtime: The Inside Story of Fianna Fáil in Power. A member of the famous Leahy family of Tubberadora, near Boherlahan, he is the son of historian and writer Seamus Leahy, who taught at Rockwell College in Cashel from the early 1960s until his retirement in 2000.
The Thomas MacDonagh Museum is dedicated to documenting and sharing the life and work of Thomas MacDonagh and his family.
The museum maintains links with MacDonagh family descendants and holds a collection relating to the family and its place in Irish history.