It was a big day for Offaly at the Heritage Week Awards held in the wonderful Royal Hospital Kilmainham on Friday 15 November 2024. As Amanda Pedlow, the Offaly Council Heritage Officer noted:
It was Offaly’s day at The Heritage Council Heritage Week Awards in Kilmainham today. James Scully is the well-deserved winner of the national Heritage Hero Award.
Ballycumber Tidy Towns Group won the Water Heritage Day award with their ‘Folly Tales and Treasure Trails’ event; The Heritage Boat Association and Inland Waterways Association with Waterways Ireland were runners up in this category with their ‘A Boatman’s Journey: Navigating the heritage of the Grand Canal’ held in Tullamore.
Lemanaghan Bog Heritage and Conservation Group were runners up in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Award (The Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh Award) for their project recording traditions and folklore of Lemanaghan.
Shinrone Heritage Group won the County Award for their Shinrone Gown project.
Well done to all the winners and to the 70+ organisers of events for this year’s Heritage Week in Offaly.
The big cheer was for the win by James Scully of the 2024 Heritage Hero award.
The Heritage Hero Award for James Scully of Tullamore and Meelick, near Banagher, County Offaly
The year 2024 marks the fiftieth since James Scully began his work promoting Offaly’s history and heritage. He had just finished in UCG and fond memories of Hayes McCoy and Bean de Valera in the Classics department. His love of art, sculpture and literature has influenced his heritage work and given it a relish which is so attractive to audiences across the county and online.
James Scully took over as secretary of the Offaly Historical Society in 1974 from Fr Conor McGreevy and began pioneering work on tombstone readings and supporting the retention of Croghan Hill with the publication of a pamphlet. The hill was saved from quarrying after an oral hearing in which some of the leading specialists gave evidence for quarrying and against exploitation for road surface material. Since about 2010 the lands about the summit have been owned by the Offaly County Council and the walks to the summit, its heritage and history are well known and appreciated. As with the proposals to close the Grand Canal in the early 1960s things have come full circle and people are astonished now that such plans were ever considered.
James qualified as a national teacher in 1977 and taught in Banagher. Here the gospel of local history was spread in the town and to the school children. Slowly Banagher began to interest itself in its local heritage. A guide for children Looking Around was produced. A drama group promoted locally written plays with a heritage theme. More recently this has led to a Charlotte Bronte group, and a visit by 50 Offaly people to Haworth. Nigel West reported the intended visit on a Thornton Village/Local channel on 1 December 2023 as
Yesterday I spoke with James Scully a Brontë historian in Banagher, Ireland. He told me that the campaign to save the Brontë Birthplace has been a catalyst for the establishment of The Banagher Brontë Society which is having its initial meeting tomorrow. A wreath is to be laid for Arthur Bell Nichols on the anniversary of his passing followed by a meeting at Hill House Banagher now run by Nicola Daly as Charlotte’s Way. On the agenda is how the group can support the Brontë Birthplace community project that runs for the next 2 weeks. It is the opportunity to buy a share of this historic building from just £10 with matched funding doubling this. It’s a great Christmas gift! More news from Banagher to follow… James Scully is planning to bring a group from Banagher to see The Brontë Birthplace and Haworth in February. The Birthplace will I am sure be a reason for many others from all around the world to visit Thornton and Haworth either for the first time or for a revisit. The project is such a wonderful asset for this beautiful part of Yorkshire
The tombstones in the old churchyard of Banagher have been published in what is a reliable and attractive production. In 2019 he worked with a drama group in Banagher in an imaginative heritage event as part of the That Beats Banagher Festival. Participants were brought on a walkabout in the old graveyard on the ancient monastic site of Saint Rynagh. The event was entitled An Encounter with Banagher’s Faithful Departed which hinted at the scenes which were to unfold.
About sixty souls gathered at the gated entrance and were then invited within the precincts of the churchyard. The initial encounter was with a stonecutter called Thomas Donahue, played by Brendan Dolan, as he was just putting the finishing touches to an ornate memorial for Margret (sic) Clinton who had died in April 1837. Thomas had succeeded his father Francis in the trade when he had died young man in 1797. In his voluminous musings he reflected on the trials and travails of the stonies with the ever-increasing demands from wealthy clients for cursive and italic fonts, ligatured and serifed letters and all sorts of decorative motifs. In spite of all he was a contented craftsman but concluded glumly that the recent arrival in the graveyard of a concrete memorial was ominous for the stonecutter’s trade. In conclusion he solemnly declared that if such a monument were erected over him that it would be over his dead body!! (see the blog ‘An encounter with Banagher’s Faithful Departed’ on www.offalyhistory.com 14 September 2019).
James has also produced an article on the Martello towers and fortifications on the Shannon for our journal Offaly Heritage 12. An important study was Historic Banagher, County Offaly: Conservation, Interpretation and Management Plan (April 2018 and revised November 2022).
James Scully, Forgotten souls: memorials in Saint Rynagh’s old graveyard, Banagher, County Offaly (Tullamore, 2020). 9781909822221
James Scully, ‘The Stories and glories of Offaly graveyards’ (Jan. 2021). The first YouTube podcast in the wake of the Covid lockdown and https://youtu.be/kCe55o63b9M?t=27; available on OffalyHistory YouTube channel.
James Scully, ‘Meelick Martello tower’, Offaly Heritage 12 (2023), pp 204–15)
Working with Kieran Keenaghan he has provided tours of the castles and Napoleonic fortifications of West Offaly, and an engaging study of the bridges of Banagher. James is an engaging lecturer who is able to charm his audience and present his learning as light while always able to weave in nuggets of literary history and works of art that leave the viewer very satisfied with the presentation. His lectures and YouTube podcasts are popular. He is also very much a team person. The three-man lecture on the Banagher Bridge (s) using all the technology then available was a classic and a fascinating event for the 100 or so people who first heard it in Banagher in the mid-1990s.
He worked with poet Jessica Traynor on a 40 minute feature for RTE Lyric FM on Banagher- In a place of pointed stones (11 Oct. 2023)
The Grand Canal is a special point of interest and James has provided the documentation for a successful film on the canal featuring a team including Eugene O’Brien of Edenderry
This is aside from numerous calls on his time to deliver lectures, blogs and articles on local history. In addition James represents Offaly History on the Heritage Forum and brings to his seat that broad knowledge and experience that is so important to the work of the Heritage Forum and of the Heritage Council.
Extracts from James’ local heritage diary for 2024 (so far) included:
- A trip to Haworth to explore the Banagher connection of CB and her husband who spent over forty years in Banagher from about 1860.
- A lecture trip to Banagher and Shannonbridge for the benefit of members of the Birr and Tullamore-based Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society.
- Helping in the successful Banagher Festival.
- A lecture on the Grand Canal for the Federation of Local Historical Societies given in early October.
His attractive blog articles are all available on www.offalyhistory.com and included:
56 Offaly in the Grand Canal Company minutes, 1900-1950 with special reference to the 1911-23 period. By James Scully.
19 The Grand Canal in Offaly and Westmeath: the five great aqueducts: Part Two. By James Scully. No 19 in the Grand Canal Offaly series
17 The Finest Building in Offaly: The Grand Canal: A Modest Declaration. By James Scully, No. 17 in the Grand Canal Offaly series
The recent discovery of the earlier name for Banagher, County Offaly and its significance. By Kieran Keenaghan and James Scully
FORGOTTEN SOULS IN BANAGHER, OFFALY. NEW BOOK ON SAINT RYNAGH’S OLD GRAVEYARD, BANAGHER by James Scully
Well that Beats Banagher!! A humourous expression of amazement. By Kieran Keenaghan and James Scully
Arthur Bell Nicholls’ Return to Banagher, 1861 – 1906, Part 1: A New Lifestyle by James Scully
THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. By James Scully
Nellie Scully (née Craven) of Kilgortin, parish of Rahan and Kilbeggan Bridge, Tullamore, July 1922 – May 2018. James Scully with thanks to the Tullamore Tribune
All of James Scully’s work is pro-bono. In his fifty years of work he has shown himself as a wonderful ambassador for and a gifted communicator of the value of the country’s heritage. He has a fondness for writers with an eye to the topographical context such as Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Trollope and the Brontes. He is a worthy and deserving recipient of the Heritage Hero status. Being James S. the award will be worn lightly but with pride on behalf of all who have come to appreciate the heritage of Offaly and of Ireland. As he said at the award ceremony he accepted it on behalf of the County of Offaly.
Well done to James, the people of Banagher, Shinrone, Ballycumber and Lemanaghan and Waterways Ireland. Also to the Heritage Council and to Minister Malcolm Noonan who is the Heritage Hero of the Decade.
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