Letter Archive
Welcome to the letter archive page for the weekly "Letter from Ireland". We started to write these letters in 2013 covering Irish Genealogy & Family History, Irish Surnames, Irish Culture & Customs and Ireland Travel, here you'll find a link to all of them.
Browse the letters listed on this page and jump to one that interests you, or enter a placename, surname or other item in the search box below to see related letters.
All of our weekly letters to date
It’s been a very interesting week in this part of the world – the Easter 1916 Rising commemoration has been taking place right through the week, with some great events around the country. Although 100 years does seem like a long time, admittedly – more than a lifetime for most of us – it’s not…
We’re just back from a great trip to Tipperary. Yesterday was a typical Irish summers day – composed equally of squally showers, warm sunshine and more! The reason we headed to County Tipperary was to track down the stories and places around the ancestors of one of our Green Room members – Lorraine Hannan from…
There also seem to be a lot of commemorations over the past while – for example, we had the 1916 Irish Easter Rising centenary one year ago. That same year we had another commemoration – it was the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme – the bloodiest battle of the…
It’s a fine “soft day” here in County Cork this morning, there is a fine shroud of mist covering the hillside as well as keeping our complexions moist! The weather, being what it is today, gives us a good excuse to head to a local barstool later and enjoy watching the Green, Red and Blue…
Let’s jump back to a time 22 years ago – the place was Dublin City, and the event was the “Eurovision song contest”. The Eurovision song contest is one of those “love it or hate it” institutions here in Ireland. Each year, a song is entered from each country in Europe (that’s quite a few…
If you were to pull out a map of your area this moment and have a look, how many places would you spot named after Irish villages, towns and counties? As you may have noticed, anywhere that the Irish – and other nationalities settled in numbers – they also brought along the names of their…
Many of our readers have mixed Irish and Scottish ancestry. How about you? Even more have surnames that they can’t quite figure out to be Irish or Scottish. This week, I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little more about this “overlap” between Ireland and Scotland as we will see the anniversary of…
We’re just back from a trip to County Wicklow – where we were covering an Irish Homelands feature for The Green Room and visiting such wonderful locations as Glendalough. Wandering around Wicklow town, one particular sign in a shop window caught our eye: “Paid Work! Film extras wanted for the 5th season of Vikings. We…
This week, we are going to have a look at some family names from County Cavan – and one Irish musician in particular. I have put some really nice musical videos in the centre of our letter today and I know that you will enjoy them. The Families of the Kingdom of Breifne. Have you…
Have you ever lived on an island? OK – I realise that places like Ireland ARE islands, but I mean the smaller islands like the ones that hug the wild coast of the west of Ireland. Earlier this week, I came across the following in a local newspaper: The births of six babies on Sherkin…