Membership lists, correspondence, account books, financial reports, minutes, statements and press releases relating to The Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stonelayers’ Trade Union, Woodworkers and Plasterers’ Trade Union, Construction Industry Federation, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Limerick Building Trades Group, SIPTU and other trade unions and union activities (1962-1998); rules, correspondence, bills, receipts and financial reports relating to the Mechanics’ Institute (1882-1996); constitutions and policy statements, press statements, speeches, membership lists, minutes, financial statements, election manifestos, correspondence, pamphlets and posters relating to the Democratic Socialist Party (1980-1994); minutes, reports, statements, accounts and correspondence relating to the Labour Party (1965-1997); electoral material and correspondence relating to Kemmy’s Dáil terms and electoral campaigns (1977-1997); correspondence, speeches, press releases, minutes and appointment diaries relating to Kemmy’s activities as Alderman and Mayor (1974-1997); appeals, petitions and other correspondence relating to Kemmy’s constituency work (1967-1997); articles and draft articles, research material (including nineteenth-century documents) and correspondence relating to Kemmy’s historical and literary activities; and photographs, artwork, correspondence and a small number of other items of personal nature.

This collection comprises printed and manuscript materials primarily relating to county Tipperary collected by Timothy Looney and research material assembled and generated by him for local history lectures and walking tours. The most notable element of the collection is the substantial quantity of estate papers relating to Shanbally Castle, Clogheen, county Tipperary, built for Cornelius O’Callaghan, 1st Viscount Lismore in c. 1810. The building was demolished in stages by the Land Commission between 1957 and 1960, during which time the bulk of the family papers were destroyed. The papers salvaged by Timothy Looney (for which see sub-series P43/1/1) include a near complete set of rentals from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century account books, extensive estate correspondence from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth century, and a range of townland map surveys from 1715 to 1898 primarily for counties Cork and Tipperary. Clogheen Fever Hospital records (sub-series P43/1/1/2/3) and the 1821 census records of Clogheen (P43/1/6/2) are also worth noting, as is the unusually large set of correspondence between Viscount Lismore’s tenants in counties Cork and Tipperary and his agent William Rochfort from the turn of the twentieth century (sub-series P43/1/1/5/1/3/1-2). The Looney collection further contains a quantity of estate papers from Castle Hyde and Doneraile Court in county Cork, and Castle Otway in county Tipperary.