Portlaoise Library, Saturday 17th May 2025, 11am
The next Local Studies Coffee Morning will take place on Saturday, 17th May at 11am in the Community Room in Portlaoise Library.
To encourage and foster local interest in the history and heritage of Laois, Portlaoise Library regularly hosts Local Studies coffee mornings. If you have an interest in Laois history, or would like to learn more about the county, then come along and meet like-minded adults of all ages to listen and share local stories of the past, ancient and recent.
This month’s introductory talk is Silent Traces: Finding Thomas Gibson in the Archives of War and Rebellion by Robert Quinn, regular attendee of our coffee mornings and professional genealogist.
Thomas Gibson will forever be remembered as one of the seventy-seven Anti-treaty prisoners executed by the Irish Free State during the Civil War (one of three executed in Laois)
[Image from Laois Digital Archive, courtesy of the Bracken and McNeill families, Rathdowney and Abbeyleix]
Records reveal more about Thomas’s life than his execution. Using genealogical research Robert Quinn will tell Thomas’s story while simultaneously guiding the listener through record sets that might help them in their own family research.
Everyone is welcome to come along to listen and share stories over a cup of tea or coffee. Like all events run in Laois Libraries, this is a completely free event.
The image is from the prisoner autograph book of Laois man Patrick Bracken (1901-1944), who took the anti-treaty side in the Irish Civil War and was imprisoned in Portlaoise and other gaols. Like many others who survived the revolutionary years, Patrick Bracken’s experiences undermined his health, resulting in premature death at the age of 43, leaving behind a wife and young family.
