Conolly Family Connections: The Social Networking of Power

An illustrated lecture by Dr. Suzanne Pegley on the power and influence of the Conolly family of Castletown House

This illustrated lecture will look at the social network of the Conolly family and how significant this was for their high middle-class verging on aristocratic status in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In past centuries, without patronage and connection one could not achieve access to individuals who would enable one to rise in the power structures of the time. This talk shows how family connections allowed the Conollys to rise from humble beginnings to great heights.

Dr. Suzanne Pegley, a Canadian, has lived in Ireland for 46 years and was employed at Castletown between 2000 and 2008 as guide and head guide. She undertook her PhD at Maynooth University using Castletown and its owner as a case study considering the social networking of the power elite in mid-Victorian Ireland. Between 2008 and her retirement in 2021, Suzanne tutored and lectured in the geography department at the University of Maynooth.

Dr. Pegley’s publications include The Land Commission and the Making of Rath Cairn: the first Gaeltacht Colony (2011) and co-wrote Aspects of Leixlip (2001) and Aspects of Lucan (2009). In 2022, her Thomas Conolly (1823-76) of Castletown House and the Social Networking of Power was published by the Four Courts Press as part of the Maynooth Studies in Local History series.

The 2026 talks’ series at Castletown House is dedicated to the memory of the late Jeanne Meldon and is presented by the Office of Public Works (OPW) in association with The Castletown Foundation.

Doors open at 3pm and the talk runs from 3.30pm to 4.30pm.

Tickets are €5 and are available from www.eventbrite.ie

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/conolly-family-connections-the-social-networking-of-power-tickets-1991354819872?aff=oddtdtcreator