The History of the P and T in County Carlow

What to Expect

A free Heritage Week talk at the Seven Oaks Hotel at 8:00pm on Monday 17 August covers the history of the P and T in County Carlow. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs ran the state’s post offices, mail and telephone network from 1924 until it was split into An Post and Telecom Eireann in 1984, and for six decades it was one of the largest employers in a county town like Carlow. Postmen, sorting staff, telephonists on the manual exchange, linesmen on the poles and the sub-postmasters in every village made up a workforce that touched every household.

Post and telegraph history is one of the more underrated seams of Irish local history because it maps a county so precisely: where the sub-offices were, when a village got the telephone, which routes the mail cars ran. The talk is free and open to the public. It runs on the busiest day of the Carlow Heritage Week programme, with a weather-myths talk by meteorologist Joanna Donnelly and a talk on the value of oral history both running in Carlow County Library the same day.

Good to Know

• Monday 17 August 2026, 8:00pm.
• Venue: the Seven Oaks Hotel, Athy Road, Carlow Town.
• Free of charge.
• Photos, stories and audience contributions are welcomed on the night.
• Phone Carlow County Council on 059 917 0300 or the Seven Oaks Hotel on 059 913 1308 to confirm whether booking is required.
• Part of National Heritage Week 2026, which runs across County Carlow from 15 to 23 August.
• Likely to appeal to retired P and T and An Post staff and their families as much as to general local history audiences.
• Free parking at the hotel.

Getting There

The Seven Oaks Hotel is on the Athy Road on the north side of Carlow Town, about ten minutes on foot from the town centre and a couple of minutes by car. There is free parking on site. Carlow railway station on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford line is roughly 1.5km away, and Bus Eireann and JJ Kavanagh coaches from Dublin, Kilkenny and Waterford stop in the town centre a short walk from the hotel.