Waterford Treasures Celebrates 25 Years with international conference

Waterford Treasures celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, having first opened the doors in 1999.

To honour 25 years of welcoming visitors from all over the world Waterford Treasures will host an international conference: ‘Waterford and the Wider World 1500–1800’, on November 8 and 9.

For half a millennium, people from Waterford have made their mark in their adoptive homelands from Salamanca to St John’s and from Malaga to Mazulipatam.

In turn, Waterfordians today are a huge mix of Viking, Norman, Gaelic Irish and more recent immigrants.

Chairman of Waterford Treasures Museums, Des Whelan commented: “To mark Waterford Treasures’ 25th anniversary, we have organised a conference to celebrate the diversity of Waterford.” 

Head Curator Cliona Purcell added: “Waterford Treasures’ exhibitions reflect the many Waterford people who made their homes abroad."

"With this conference we hope to bring their lives to a wider audience," she added.

The conference will offer an opportunity to hear international experts from Newfoundland, New York, Spain, France, Italy, Scotland and Ireland.

They will share their research into Waterford’s international connections with England, Europe and the Americas, East Indies and Asia, and the Caribbean, including the question of involvement in the slave trade.

Guest speakers on ‘Waterford, England and the Atlantic – sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ will be Susan Flavin and David Brown, also of Trinity College, Dublin. 

A discussion on the ‘Origins and the growth of Waterford’s French connections’ will include Marian Lyons with her talk: ‘Waterford migrants in Breton ports in the seventeenth century’; Eamon Ó Ciosáin with, ‘Waterford merchants and tradespeople in Western France in the seventeenth century’ and Sandrine Tromeur on ‘William Lee (c.1622–1677), a Waterford merchant in La Rochelle’, all of Maynooth University.

The keynote will be given by well-known Waterfordian, Julian Walton (Dunhill Multi-Education Centre), with his talk, ‘Spiting the Penal Laws’: Researching Irish Merchants in eighteenth-century Andalucía: A Personal Odyssey.’ 

Looking in-depth at ‘Waterford, Iberia and the Canaries: The world of Trade’, Giada Pizzoni (European University Institute in Florence) will present, ‘John Aylward: a Waterford ordinary merchant with an extraordinary career’.

Many more talks are available throughout the conference. The conference venue is Waterford’s Medieval Museum and the Dr Mary Strangman Large Room, City Hall. For further details and tickets see https://www.waterfordtreasures.com/