Oscar Kelly will join us in August to speak about the founding of Castletownshend in West Cork. Oscar is a recent history graduate with a Master's from Uppsala University in Sweden. His research focused on the founding of Castletownshend, a story most often linked to the arrival of Colonel Richard Townsend in the mid-seventeenth century. Yet a largely forgotten colony at Glenbarrahane, just two kilometres along the coast, predated the village. Having grown up on Reen Peninsula, 400 meters across the harbour, he spent many summers looking out over the bay pondering what rich local histories have become lost to time. Oscar hopes to bring one of these stories to light through reconstructing the rise and oblivion of this forgotten settlement and what impact it might have on Castletownshend's founding story.