Mayo historian to deliver talk on founder of The Connaught Telegraph
A TALK entitled ‘Frederick Cavendish and The Connaught Telegraph’ will be delivered by historian Dr. Michael M. O'Connor at the first gathering of 2023 by members of the Mayo Historical and Archaeological Society.
Dr. O'Connor tells the interesting and eventful story of how Frederick Cavendish came from an aristocratic background in England to Castlebar and became an important influence in pre-famine Mayo.
The Connaught Telegraph is the oldest provincial newspaper in Ireland, having been founded on March 17, 1828 - and it first editions under the name of The Connaught Telegraph being published in January 1830.
The talk will be held in the ATU campus, Castlebar, on Wednesday next, January 17, at 7.30 p.m. All are welcome.
Dr. Michael O'Connor is a lawyer, independent researcher and author. He holds first-class honours degrees in law from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cambridge and a Doctorate in Philosophy (law) from Trinity College Dublin.
He is a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and the High Court of Ireland.
He is currently researching Irish and Anglo slaveholders in the former British Colonies in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean.
Recent publications include Caribbean Slave Owners & Other Lesser-Known Histories from County Mayo (2021) and Criminal Conversation with My Wife—Women & the Laws of Men (2023).
Frederick Cavendish was one of the most important and influential men to have lived in pre-famine County Mayo.
Born into the aristocratic Cavendish family of Doveridge Hall, in 1777, debt, alleged criminality and consequent disgrace cost him his career in the public service, his place in society and his opulent lifestyle in Georgian Dublin.
Cavendish reinvented himself and rebuilt his life in Castlebar with his second wife, Agnes Catherine MacDonnell of Springfield House.
He established The Connaught Telegraph and began a crusade against the landed class, corruption, inequality and injustice.
"The Telegraph’s motto, ‘Be just and fear not’, would quickly become a slogan for Mayo’s dispossessed and impoverished people.
"The Telegraph would highlight their plight, tackle the causes, and leave posterity with accounts of ordinary people’s resilience and suffering that would otherwise not exist."