The Kehoe Papers at Carlow County Archives

What to Expect

Carlow County Archives runs a half-hour lunchtime talk on the Kehoe Papers at Carlow County Library on Thursday 20 August, from 12:45pm to 1:15pm. Archive collections deposited by Carlow families and businesses are the raw material of local history in the county, and a talk built around a single named collection is a chance to see what a working archivist does with a bundle of papers: what survives, how it is catalogued, and what it can tell you about the period that no published source will.

Thirty minutes over lunch is a deliberately accessible format for people who would not sit through an evening lecture, and it gets office and shop staff in the town centre through the archive door. The county archives service is based with Carlow County Library on Tullow Street and holds council records, business and estate papers, and family collections, and it operates alongside the library’s genealogy and local history service through the year. The Big Dig runs at Carlow County Museum a few minutes away the same day if you are making a Heritage Week outing of it.

Good to Know

• Thursday 20 August 2026, 12:45pm to 1:15pm.
• Venue: Carlow County Library, Tullow Street, Carlow Town.
• Free of charge.
• Phone Carlow County Library on 059 912 9705 or Carlow County Council on 059 917 0300 to confirm whether places must be reserved.
• Part of National Heritage Week 2026, which runs across County Carlow from 15 to 23 August.
• Short lunchtime format, so easy to fit around a working day in the town.
• The launch of Oliver Whelan’s Landlords and Tenants in Co. Carlow 1879-1960 takes place in the same building at 7:30pm that evening.

Getting There

Carlow County Library is in the Presentation Building on Tullow Street in the middle of Carlow Town, minutes from the Potato Market, Dublin Street and the shopping centre. Carlow railway station on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford line is about a ten-minute walk. Drivers should use the Shopping Centre or Potato Market car parks, as Tullow Street is pedestrianised in sections and parking directly outside is not practical at lunchtime.