Monthly meetings of the RIYC History Group take place in the Drawing Room at 19.30hrs and all Members and their guests are welcome. There is an optional supper €38, in the Dining Room following the talk at 20.45hrs. All members welcome. Book with Catering.

Details of the speakers and topics coming up for 2025

 

• Thursday 9th October, 2025 for the  first Military History talk of the Autumn. Title: The Irish in the French Resistance. Speaker, Clodagh Finn & John Morgan.

The Irish in the French Resistance tells the stories of Irish people who joined the underground network to take a stand against the Nazi occupation of Europe. 
In a talk on the Irish in the Resistance, Clodagh Finn and John Morgan will tell the stories of the forgotten Irish men and women, such as radio operator Agnes Bernelle of Berlin and Dun Laoghaire and Catherine Crean of Moore Street, Dublin, who risked their lives to resist Hitler.
Irish writer and Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett famously returned to France from a holiday in Ireland when WWll broke out. ‘You simply couldn’t stand by with your arms folded,’ he said later. His clandestine work with two resistance groups is well-documented, but there were many other ordinary Irish people who joined a growing underground network to take a stand against the Nazi occupation of Europe. 
Some took up arms. Others gathered intelligence, sheltered fugitives, hid Jews, carried messages, committed acts of sabotage, broke codes, spread propaganda or parachuted behind enemy lines. Some Irish people even died for the Resistance.
The talk is free to attend and is open to all members and their guests and will take place in the Drawing Room at 19.30hrs. An optional supper afterwards book with [email protected]

Author bios
Clodagh Finn is a journalist and author of ‘Through Her Eyes: a history of Ireland in 21 women’ and ‘A Time to Risk All’ (Gill Books), a biography of Mary Elmes, the ‘Irish Oskar Schindler’. 
In 2022, she collaborated with the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alison Gilliland, to write ‘Her Keys to the City’, highlighting the overlooked contributions of 80 women who shaped Dublin.
She writes ‘An Irishwoman’s Diary’ in the Irish Examiner and has worked as a sub-editor and feature writer for several newspapers, as well as a freelance writer and editor in Paris. She has a degree in French and Archaeology from University College Dublin and is particularly interested in writing about overlooked people from history.  
 John Morgan is a lawyer who has a longstanding interest in the history of World War II, particularly in relation to Allied Resistance and Escape Lines. John is a Trustee of the Escape Lines Memorial Society (UK) and co-founder of the Basque Pyrenees Freedom Trails Association (Basque Country/Spain).



Thursday 23rd October, 2025, the second talk in October will be given by RIYC Member Tom O'Neill.
An Outline of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. - 404 B.C.) - is there relevance to modern geopolitics?

His reference material will be from "The Peloponnesian War" by Donald Kagan (2004).

An optional supper afterwards book with [email protected]







Wednesday 26th November, 2025 The Daniel O’Connell 250th Anniversary lecture with Professor Maurice Bric.

For optional supper afterwards book with [email protected]
Talks are free to RIYC members and their guests and will take place at 19.30hrs in the Drawing Room. Optional Supper available at €38, booking is essential. Book with Catering.
For more information about this group contact Winifred Kelliher or on 087 2446004