Hi, Folks,
As promised and coming to you tonight from snowy southern Maine (8 inches so far, maybe) ...
From Lynne Sisk and Mary Lee Dunn
BALLYKILCLINE REUNION 2006 SCHEDULE
(Story and Registration Form Below)
Locations: Albany, NY & Rutland, VT
Sunday, June 25 (Albany)
* Registration and Opening Session, College of Saint Rose (CSR), Albany, 3 pm - John McEneney, state legislator and former Albany County historian, will be the speaker.
* Reception, CSR, 5 pm - Sponsored by CSR President R. Mark Sullivan.
* Dinner, CSR, 6:30 pm - Speaker is Dr. Ruth-Ann Harris of Boston College's Irish Studies Program, an editor
of The Search for Missing Friends.
Monday, June 26 (Albany & Rutland)
* Brunch, Holiday Inn Turf, Albany 9 am - Speaker is Jeanne Keefe, founding member and webmaster for the Troy Irish Genealogy Society.
* Travel on Your Own to Rutland - Visit local places (see below)
* Panel Discussion, Holiday Inn, Rutland, 4 pm - Panel Discussion by Members with Rutland Ties and Local Family Historians.
* Dinner, Holiday Inn, Rutland, 6 pm - Barbecue (open-air, weather permitting; otherwise, indoors)
Tuesday, June 27 (Rutland)
* Free time, Rutland area, 9-4 pm -- Visit the Marble Museum (www.vermont-marble.com) in Proctor, various local cemeteries (handouts will guide you), or Rutland record archives.
* Talk, Holiday Inn Rutland, 4 pm - Talk by Dr. Michael Austin of Castleton College, who will describe the Irish immigrant experience in Rutland.
* Dinner, Holiday Inn, Rutland, 6 pm - Final event of the Reunion.
7th Ballykilcline Reunion Set for June 25-27
in Albany, NY, and Rutland, VT
The Ballykilcline Society will host its seventh Reunion in Albany, NY, and Rutland, VT, in June. The speakers will focus on the Ballykilcline emigrants' settlement and experience in those areas and local Irish Famine immigration. The cities are about 100 miles apart.
The main speaker will be Dr. Ruth-Ann Harris of Boston College's Irish Studies Program. Dr. Harris is known to many family historians as an editor of the invaluable series of Missing Friends volumes that present Irish Famine immigrants' searches for lost family members in ads of The Boston Pilot. She also has written a book about seasonal migrant laborers from Ireland to the United Kingdom called The Nearest Place That Wasn't Ireland.
The Reunion dates are June 25-27 (Sunday through Tuesday) and the base in each location is The College of St. Rose (CSR; www.strose.edu) on Western Avenue in Albany, courtesy of college President Dr. R. Mark Sullivan, and the Holiday Inn in Rutland.
The speakers also include local historians John McEneney of Albany, a current state legislator and past county historian; Jeanne Keefe, a founder and webmaster of the Troy Irish Genealogy Society (TIGS; www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/); and Michael Austin, a history professor and authority on the Irish in Rutland.
The Ballykilcline rent strike, evictions, and forced emigration in Famine time of several hundred people were described in historian Robert Scally's 1995 book, The End of Hidden Ireland. The Society, which was organized after members recognized their own stories in Scally's account, has learned that dozens of immigrants from Ballykilcline settled in or stayed for a time in Rutland, which had social, commercial, and economic contacts with Troy and Albany due to proximity, connecting rail lines, markets, and so forth. About 15% of the people evicted and then emigrated at Crown expense in 1847 and 1848, at the height of the Great Famine, went to or through Rutland. Many of the men joined the marble quarry work force there as that industry boomed after rail lines were built.
The Society is opening the registration period for the full Re-union or various parts of it (see registration form below) to non-members. The registration period will end on March 10. The registration cost for the full Reunion is $100, which covers three dinners and a brunch as well as the four speakers and a panel discussion. Attendees make their own travel and lodging reservations. Registration fees are non-refundable.
The Holiday Inn Turf in Albany offers Reunion participants a special lodging rate of $89 a night plus 11% taxes, credit card required, until 3 pm on June 4. You must mention that you will attend the Ballykilcline Reunion. The Holiday Inn in Rutland's special rate for Reunion participants is $100 a night; taxes currently are 9%. You must make your reservation by June 12. Again, mention that you will attend the Ballykilcline Reunion when you call. The toll-free line is 1-800-462-4810
For your pre- or post-Reunion planning, the New York State Library (www.nysl.nysed.gov) is located in downtown Albany with extensive collections of interest to family historians. In Vermont, the state's Middlesex Records Center (www.bgs.state.vt.us/gsc/pubrec/referen/index.html) is less than an hour's drive from Rutland and the Vermont Historical Society (www.vermonthistory.org) has facilities in Montpelier and Barre.
The Society makes every effort to keep Reunion costs reasonable. Previous Reunions have been held in County Roscommon, Ireland (three times); Lowell, MA; Vancouver, Canada; and Butte, Montana. The Society is a non-profit organization. Membership costs only $15 a year and, among other benefits, includes a newsletter twice a year and access to our own CD of Ballykilcline-Strokestown-Kilglass records at a nominal charge. The Society's web site, which names the evicted families from Ballykilcline, is on-line at www.ballykilcline.com.
The Society is an international organization with an active research program which aims to trace the evicted tenant farmers and to foster the local history of that part of Ireland, especially during the early and middle 1800s.
For 40 years, Ballykilcline was part of the Mahon estate in Strokestown where Ireland's Famine Museum is now located. Many immigrants evicted from the Mahon estate and "assisted" out of Ireland died at Grosse Ile in Quebec during the calamitous summer of cholera and ship's fever there in 1847. Many of Mahon's evictee-passengers were the relatives and friends of the people in Ballykilcline.
BALLYKILCLINE 2006 REUNION
REGISTRATION Form
Registration Options (choose your events): Multiply by No. Registrants
Three days of events--Albany & Rutland: $100/person _______________________
All Albany events only: $65/ person _______________________
Sunday dinner & Harris talk only: $32/person _______________________
Mon. brunch (Albany), Keefe talk only: $14/person _______________________
All Rutland events only: $50/person _______________________
McEneney talk only: $8/person _______________________
Austin talk only: $8/person _______________________
(Unregistered walk-ins allowed at McEneney and Austin talks only but registration is preferred).
` Total Enclosed: _______________________
We will try to offer a choice of entrees at the Sunday and Tuesday night dinners.
(Please PRINT!)
NAME(S) (list all covered by this registration form and your check)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS (main contact) _______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
TEL _______________________________________ EMAIL____________________________________________
WHERE YOU PLAN TO STAY:
Albany__________________________________________ Rutland _______________________________________
SURNAMES YOU ARE RESEARCHING & HOME IN IRELAND (IF KNOWN): ________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
ARE YOU A MEMBER OF THE BALLYKILCLINE SOCIETY? _________________
NUMBER IN YOUR PARTY COVERED BY THIS REGISTRATION: _____________
NUMBER IN YOUR PARTY EXPECTED TO REGISTER SEPARATELY: _________
TO REGISTER:
By March 10, 2006, clearly fill out the registration form and mail it and your check made out to Mary Lee Dunn to her at
117 Kennebunk Road
Alfred, Maine 04002
Need to talk to us? Email Mary Lee Dunn at MaryLDunn@aol.com or phone her at 1-207-324-7088 before 8 PM EST.
Registration Ballykilcline Society Reunion - Albany, Rutland
Moderator: efinn