Irish Genealogy & Family History Resources
Are you interested in discovering more on your Irish family history? In this section, I have included letters (and podcasts) that include stories, explanations and approaches to help you investigate your own Irish family history. You may even receive a little inspiration to break down one or two family history brick walls!
Browse the features 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 and podcasts.
Irish Genealogy & Family History Letters
In last week’s letter from Ireland, we talked about the “Irish Diaspora” and I asked what part of the diaspora you came from. Well – the response was second to none (that’s very good in Irish parlance!). I spent until last Thursday reading replies that traced the tracks of many of your Irish ancestors. So…
The River Bandon gets it’s name from the Celtic goddess for water – Bann – and rises near the town of Drimoleague. Through the many aerial shots used in the programme we see all the towns, bridges and castles along the way. And we meet many of the local characters. During its first few miles…
Many Irish families seem to feature multiple instances of the same forenames e.g you might find dozens of Johns, Marys or Richards – but very few Joans, Timothys or Michaels. This cumulative effect is often down to “Irish naming patterns” – but sometimes families have a special place for some given names. Last week, I…
Todays letter is a little different – it features an imagined ancestral letter written by one of our readers as well as their imagined response. We start with a letter received in Ireland back in the mid 1800s from Nova Scotia in what was to become Canada: “Hello, My name is Lawrence Cavanagh and I…
A few weeks back, I sent a Letter from Ireland out to all of our subscribers around the word and asked “Which of these do you want more than anything?” I then gave a list of hopes, wishes and dreams that our readers have been sending to me over the last two years. As I said in…
Irish Genealogy & Family History Podcasts
In a follow-up to our recent episode about traveling from Cobh to Ellis Island – we head back to the Cobh Heritage Centre in County Cork and hear 7 stories of emigration from this very spot to many places around the world. Many thanks to Jack Walsh and all the team at the Cobh Heritage…
Join us on a Saint Patrick’s Day Parade of Story and Song. In this episode we share two stories – one all about the places in Ireland where Saint Patrick is said to have walked and the next looks at the Shamrock and the gorse, two plants associated with this time of year in Ireland.…
In this special episode of the Letter from Ireland show we start our journey in Cobh (Queenstown) in County Cork. We chat with the manager of the Cobh Heritage Centre who has his own immigration stories to tell. We then take the route across the Atlantic that our ancestors would have followed (just slightly upgraded!)…
In this week’s episode we go back in time. First we go back to a time when the first Celtic peoples arrived in Ireland – we then go back even further to look at the period when the Celts appeared on the continent of Europe for the first time. Much of this “history” is relayed…
In this week’s episode we look at the life times and legacy of three ancient Celtic saints – with lots of fine music in between. We start with a letter all about the Irish Saint Gobnait – but you may be surprised at how her name was anglicised into different versions that you may have…