First South Credit Union (FSCU) continues to be an important partner to Kinsale Culture and Heritage Society in its efforts to promote both history and culture within the community. Kinsale Branch of the First South Credit Union For the third year in a row the credit union has provided sponsorship for the society’s annual Seachtain […]

Thomas Klee[1] 19 February 2026 Kinsale Cultural and Heritage Society is exceptionally grateful to Mr. Thomas Klee for allowing us to publish his family’s story on our website. Anyone who reads the piece will be struck by the depth of research Thomas has put into the article on his family. Preserving our history is a […]

On Wednesday last, all five 3rd classes from the primary schools in the Kinsale area came together to celebrate Seachtain na Gaeilge at Kinsale Library. The event was organised by the Kinsale Cultural and Heritage Society and generously sponsored by the First South Credit Union. Well-known Seanchaí Paddy O’Brien entertained the children with his unique […]

Fergal Browne There was great excitement around the towns of Kinsale and Carrigaline in the month of September 1982 when the BBC began filming an adaptation of Molly Keane’s ‘Big House’ novel, ‘Good Behaviour’ in the area. Unusually for a book set in Co. Waterford, the BBC, having obtained the film rights to the book, […]

(JJ Hurley) A tradition of pantomime has existed in the fabric of Kinsale’s Christmas calendar, but when did the spectacle make its opening debut? A trawl of the newspapers reveals a proud tradition of variety performances as far back as the late 19th century, but the emergence of pantomime appears in the late 1930s. The […]

Fergal Browne While tennis in Ireland has roots stretching back to medieval times, the modern boom came in the late 19th century, when lawn tennis swept across Ireland’s ‘gentry’ class leading to the establishment of the Irish Championships at Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in 1879—just two years after Wimbledon. Elizabeth Meade, of Ballymartle House, was […]

The Connaught Rangers Monument in the Abbey Grave, Kinsale The historic Abbey graveyard, hidden from the bustling streets of the busy tourist town of Kinsale, shelters a memorial to 12 soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the Connaught Rangers. Their deaths have, to some extent, become a mystery as, like many other soldiers of the […]

It’s a topic that hasn’t been out of the headlines in recent times: public toilets. But looking back at the newspapers from November 1965, it seems that not much progress has been made on the subject in 60 years. Raised at a meeting of the Kinsale Development Association (KDA)—a body formed to promote the town—there […]

1985 Kinsale and Its London Links In November 1985, a large group of Kinsale’s residents departed the town to travel to London, as part of the Kinsale and District Emigrants Association. Recorded in the pages of The Southern Star, the article described the excursion as ‘Success of London Social’. The Kinsale contingent departed from the […]

Kinsale, Co. Cork — Discover Cork’s rebels’ stories from the Curragh prison camps, with historian James Durney at Kinsale Library, Saturday, November 1st at 2pm. Entitled A Calico Shack in Kildare. Cork Volunteers behind the wire, 1922–24, James is set to tell the tale of the struggle that continued from the outside to behind the camp’s […]