Affichage de 794 résultats

Edward Kenelm Digby was born in 1894, the eldest son of 10th Baron Digby. After Eton and Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards in 1915. He fought at the battles of Aubers Ridge and Loos in 1915 and was promoted to second-in-command at the age of 21, after his CO was killed. He took part in the battle of the Somme in 1916, when tanks were first used; 11 officers of his battalion were killed on one day in September 1916 and all the others were wounded except him. In 1917 he fought at Passchendaele and played a major role in the occupation and final defeat of Germany in 1918.

On his return home, he married Constance Pamela Bruce, daughter of 2nd Baron Aberdare in 1919 and inherited Minterne from his father when he died in 1920. He couldn’t afford to live at Minterne, so he took the post of Military Secretary to the Governor of Australia from 1920 to 1923. With his bank balance restored, he came back to Minterne, where he bred Channel Island cattle and established a thriving dairy herd. On the outbreak of war in 1939, Minterne was taken over by a naval hospital, and the family moved to Cerne Abbas. During the war, he and Lady Digby delivered the milk around Cerne Abbas.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he bred rhododendrons and azaleas, sponsored collecting expeditions abroad. He was appointed President of the Royal Show in 1949, and President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1959. He was Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1952 until his death. He was appointed Gentleman at Arms 1939, and a member of the Household Body Guard in 1952, resigning on grounds of ill-health. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1960.

He died in 1964 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward Henry Kenelm, 12th Baron Digby.

Founded probably in the winter of 1887/1888, King's County (Offaly) GAA County Committee, met in a hotel in Birr on 6 March 1888, to arrange for the holding of championships in hurling and football. The county committee became known as Offaly County Board over time, and is responsible for Gaelic games within the county and for selecting inter-county teams to play in the national championships.

Offaly GAA Southern Committee was a sub-committee of Offaly GAA consisting of delegates representing Banagher, Belmont, Birr, Clareen, Coolderry, Cloghan, Doon, Drumcullen, Eglish, Erin's Own, Ferbane, Kilcormac, Killoughey, Kinnitty, Lusmagh, Seir Kieran and Shinrone clubs.

George Cunningham, FSA, D.Litt., (hc UL), M.Litt., MA (hc NUI Galway), author, historian, editor, publisher and bibliophile is a former primary school principal (Coolderry Central School, Birr) and a community activist at many levels, focusing on the promotion of heritage and the environment. He has been involved with promoting the south tip of Offaly since his first guided tour to Ely O Carroll territory in 1973, and was part of the first voluntary archaeological survey of Offaly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is also the founder and life president of Roscrea Heritage Society/Centre .

Now a national director of Crann, he has revived its South West Midlands branch, incorporating it into Roscrea’s Tidy Towns. He has taught and lectured at all levels and gave seventeen years public service to the Governing Authority, many years as Deputy Chair, of UL and chairman of its library development committee. Chairman of the Bolton Library Board, 1994 to 2010. He directed the Roscrea Conference (1987 to 2017) and the Spring conference in April 2017 was the 60th consecutive gathering at the Cistercian Abbey, Roscrea.

Prominently associated all his life with all aspects of Irish heritage and a noted bibliophile, his personal library contains in excess of 20,000 volumes. A major book project has been ongoing since 1987; to date over 65,000 books have been donated to schools, colleges, and charitable institutions. He has written or edited some sixteen books and hundreds of minor publications mainly on the Irish midlands and on the Burren.

Sir William Parsons, 2nd Baronet of Birr Castle was the eldest son of Sir Laurence Parsons, 1st Baronet of Birr Castle, and Lady Frances Savage. He succeeded his father as 2nd Baronet of Birr Castle in 1698. Sir William Parsons was first married to Lady Elizabeth Preston of Craigmiller, and they had one son, William, before she died in 1701. He then remarried to Lady Elizabeth St. George. On 17 March 1740, he died and was succeeded by his grandson, Sir Laurence Parsons.

Sir Laurence Parsons, 3rd Baronet of Birr Castle, was the eldest son of Sir William Parsons and Lady Martha Pigott. He married his first wife, Lady Mary Sprigge in 1730. They had a single son the following year named William. Laurence Parsons succeeded his grandfather as 3rd Baronet of Birr Castle on 17 March 1740. He married again in 1742 to Lady Anne Harman, and had two more sons, Laurence in 1742, and Wentworth in 1746. Sir Laurence Parsons died in 1749 and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son by his first marriage, Sir William Parsons.