The Value of Oral History in County Carlow

What to Expect

Carlow County Library hosts a Heritage Week talk on the value of oral history in County Carlow at 3:00pm on Monday 17 August, running 45 minutes. Oral history is the strand of local history that never made it into a document: the sugar factory floor, the mart, the creamery, farm labour before mechanisation, emigration and return, the daily texture of Carlow life that only survives if somebody sits down with a recorder while the people who lived it are still here to talk. The talk sets out why the discipline matters and what happens to a county’s record when nobody collects it.

Carlow County Library and Carlow County Archives hold and add to the county’s documentary record, and library staff run a genealogy and local history service from the Tullow Street building through the year. A talk like this doubles as a recruiting pitch: oral history projects run on volunteers willing to do the interviews and the transcription. The same day carries two more Heritage Week talks in the town, one on weather myths with meteorologist Joanna Donnelly in the same building and one on the history of the P and T in County Carlow at the Seven Oaks Hotel.

Good to Know

• Monday 17 August 2026, 3:00pm, running 45 minutes.
• Venue: Carlow County Library, Presentation Building, Tullow Street, Carlow Town.
• Free of charge, and supported by Heritage Council funding.
• Phone Carlow County Library on 059 912 9705 to confirm whether places must be booked.
• Part of National Heritage Week 2026, which runs across County Carlow from 15 to 23 August.
• Of interest to local history society members, genealogists and anyone thinking of recording a family member.
• The library’s genealogy and local history service operates from the same building through the year.

Getting There

Carlow County Library is in the Presentation Building on Tullow Street, in the centre of Carlow Town and a short walk from the Potato Market, Dublin Street and the main shopping streets. Carlow railway station on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford line is roughly ten minutes away on foot, and Bus Eireann and JJ Kavanagh coaches stop in the town centre. Use the Shopping Centre or Potato Market car parks if driving.