Saturday 19th September 2026 – Programme – 11th Festival of History
Venue: Greystones Golf Club, Whitshed Road, Greystones
10.00: Official Opening and welcome by Mr. George Jones, Chairman of the La Touche Legacy Committee
Welcome by Cllr Dr. Caroline Winstanley, Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council & Cllr. Mark Barry, Cathaoirleach of Greystones Municipal District
10.15; Dr. Ciarán Casey, Department of Economics, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick
Title of lecture: ‘Debunking Bad History History-Ireland in the 1960s’
Dr. Ciarán Casey is an economic historian specialising in Irish economic policy and an Assistant Professor at the University of Limerick. He is author of ‘Policy Failures and the Irish Economic Crisis’ (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018) and ‘The Irish Department of Finance, 1959-1999’. (IPA, 2022). He holds a DPhil from Oxford, where he was awarded a Clarendon Scholarship. He is currently working on a history of wellbeing in Ireland since independence.
11:00 Coffee
11.15: Dr. David McCullagh, RTE
‘Title of lecture: From Crown to Harp: How the Treaty was undone, 1922-1949’
David began his journalistic career working for the Evening Press in 2001. In August 2025, McCullagh was named as the successor to Claire Byrne as the presenter for Today With… on RTÉ Radio 1, and began in November. He signed off from the Six One News on 31 October 2025.
In September 2025, he hosted a series on Éamon de Valera. His most recent book is called From Crown to Harp: how the Treaty was undone, 1922-49, which tells the tale of how Ireland escaped from the Treaty.
12.30 : Stephen Collins, Journalist & Author (ex Irish Times) Guest Speaker
Title of Lecture “Current Political Climate”
Journalist and author, former Political Correspondent with The Irish Times. In 1983–84 Collins sat on the New Ireland Forum, a body designed to establish common ground amongst Irish nationalist political parties. His later criticisms of Charles Haughey, who also sat on the Forum, were, it has been said, primarily moulded by the complacency with which he had seen Jack Lynch‘s handling of the Arms Crisis of 1970. Collins has published books on the Cosgrave political dynasty and, more recently, on the foundation of the Progressive Democrats political party, called Breaking the Mould. His father Willie Collins (1916–2006) was a journalist with the Irish Press and was deputy editor of The Sunday Press, and Stephen is the older brother of Sunday Independent News Editor Liam Collins.
Followed by lunch
Fee: €50 Bookings: Kay Coughlan Tel: 01 2876694 Email: Greystonesmd@wicklowcoco.ie
Further Info: George Jones Email: george.anthony.jones@gmail.com Tel: 086 821 7357
