The late Sean Cloney is remembered by many as the husband at the centre of the Fethard-on-Sea boycott of 1957, and for the heroic portrayal of him by Liam Cunningham in the recent film A Love Divided.

But Sean was also a local historian and lecturer of standing who wrote several authoritative papers on the 1798 Rising in Co Wexford, and he is also remembered as a genealogist who was an expert in untangling the various branches of the Colclough family tree.

His last written work was about an ambush in the townland of Arklow near Wellingtonbridge, Co Wexford, during the 1798 Rising, prepared for the Journal of the Wexford Historical Society. He died on October 19th last as the latest volume of the Journal was being edited.

Affectionate tributes

Volume 17 was launched recently by Bernard Browne, the historian behind many of the 1798 commemorations, and with the dedication: "In affectionate memory of Sean M. Cloney, 1926-1999. Bis vivat qui bene vivat." Sean's wife and daughter were there to hear the warm and affectionate tributes being paid to the man who fought sectarianism and bitterness in his writings and in his life.

Prof Ronan Fanning of UCD, in an appreciation of Sean in this Journal, recalls a family holiday with Sean's family at their home in Dungulph Castle, his detailed knowledge of Tintern Abbey and the Colclough family, and "his extraordinary rapport with his audience".

He paints a glorious pen-picture of Sean, with his "black beret at that inimitably rakish angle, piercing blue eyes, twinkling smile, voice never strident but well pitched to carry without benefit of microphone."

Sean's contributions to the Journal over the years were as broad as they were deep, ranging from stone artefacts and Templar's tombs near Templetown to 17th-century Mass books and, of course, sectarianism and the 1798 Rising.

As Ronan Fanning says: "It is fitting, too, that his contribution to the current issue bears witness to the fact that, notwithstanding the illness of his last years, the intensity of his intellectual curiosity remained undiminished and sustained him to the end."

Two other local historians who had fine voices, Sam Coe (1908-1998) and Nellie Walsh (1913-1997), are also remembered in the new Journal as founders of the society and singers of repute, with tributes from Nicky Furlong.

Sam is buried in Old Kilcormack, which has so many associations with the Rising. He was a founder member with the late Dr George Hadden of the Old Wexford Society, as it was first known, but was also a leading light in the Wexford Male Voice Choir and a pillar of St Iberius's Church. He delighted in his boast that he had held every office open to a lay member of the Church of Ireland, but would have taken even greater delight in last year's election of his great-nephew, the Right Rev Paul Colton, as Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.

Wexford soloist

Nellie Walsh had the distinction of being the first soloist heard in the very first Wexford Opera Festival production in 1951, Balfe's Rose of Castille. She too was a founding member of the Old Wexford Society, and in 1989 she was elected president of the Wexford Historical Society.

Wexford's living historians are made of the same mettle as these three. In this Journal, Prof Louis Cullen of TCD and New Ross examines "Rebellion mortality in Wexford in 1798", Sir David Goodall traces the activities of the Dixons and Le Hunte's Cavalry during the Rising, and Prof Daniel Gahan looks at the outbreak of the Rising in north and central Co Wexford.

Jim Doyle, Ruan O'Donnell, William Sweetman, Margaret O hOgartaigh and Tom Williams assess five interesting leaders of the Wexford Rising - Robert Carty, Edward Fitzgerald, Jeremiah Fitzhenry, Edward Hay and Edward Roche. And Anna Kinsella, recalling an earlier commemoration, asks: "Who feared to speak in 1898?"

In an original paper that shows 1798 will continue to provide enough material for researchers well into the new century, Prof John Mannion looks at a rising by Wexford exiles in Newfoundland in 1800, inspired by the events at home two years earlier and a curious example of what he describes as "transatlantic disaffection."

And, never afraid of controversy or of stepping into the fray, Prof Tom Dunne of New Ross and UCC responds to his critics with yet another paper on the Battle of New Ross and the massacre at Scullabogue.

He takes issue with a number of his fellow Wexford historians, including Kevin Whelan, Daniel Gahan and the late Sean Cloney, who was instrumental in erecting the memorial stone commemorating the victims of Scullabogue (and which I had the honour of unveiling in Old Ross churchyard in 1998).

Family memories

Like many Wexford historians, Tom Dunne's quest for more knowledge and greater understanding of the events of 1798 was inspired by inherited family memories. He wondered why one ancestor, John Rice of Irishtown, New Ross, fought and died in the Rising, while another, Arthur Dunne of Tounmallogue, took no part and did not join his neighbours.

This special 1798 edition of the Journal is edited by Nicky Furlong and Celestine Murphy, and produced with the assistance of Comoradh '98. With research such as this, as Nicky Furlong says, the men and omen of 1798 continue to have an intimate grip on the memories and folk traditions of Co Wexford.

"One might naively have hoped that the last word has been said, the last paragraph tidied up, and that benign consensus obtained," he says. "Thankfully, nothing of the sort has happened."