December 2013 marks the 3rd anniversary of this website and to celebrate, I have a treat.
2013 is the 50th anniversary of Canon Stokes’ wonderful lecture “The Parish of Powerscourt“. I have transcribed this lecture to make it available to a new audience. In addition, I have included further reading and notes on the material covered by Stokes. You can access the file by clicking on the link below.
Enjoy!
The Parish of Powerscourt: A Centenary Lecture
Foreword
This lecture was delivered by Canon Stokes in 1963 as part of the centenary celebrations of the completion of the new church at Powerscourt Gate. The purpose of re-issuing it is both to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that lecture and to make it available to a new audience.
It is a hallmark of the work that must have gone into preparing this lecture that the content still informs today, five decades later. Its breadth is impressive; the history of the locality is surveyed from pre-Christian tims to the early twentieth century. In order to complement the material presented by Stokes, I have included some additional footnotes that highlight what material he may have had available to inform him at the time, and add any new information that may have come to light since. The purpose of these notes is to provide those interested in pursuing the history of our area further with some useful leads to begin their work.
The publication of the reprinted lecture is set to coincide with the third anniversary of the website: www.enniskerryhistory.org, where more information is deposited and where interested readers can continue the conversation on the many topics initiated by Canon Stokes.
Michael Seery
December 2013