Celebrate Your Irish Heritage

Hi, we're Mike and Carina. We travel Ireland and the Irish ancestral trails of the world, connect with people of Irish descent and share the resulting stories, photos, videos and podcasts with you.

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Recent Articles

slider - Kinsale to Clonakilty on the Wild Atlantic Way

Kinsale to Clonakilty on the Wild Atlantic Way

We start our journey along the Wild Atlantic Way in the lovely town of Kinsale. We are very fortunate to have this on our doorstep as we live about twenty minutes away. Every school child in Ireland knows this place for the Battle of Kinsale which took place in 1601 and made real the English…

slider image - Cape Clear on the Wild Atlantic Way

Cape Clear on the Wild Atlantic Way

We left the pier in Baltimore (sharing a name and a link with Baltimore city in the USA) at 10.30am and headed off to Cape Clear across a gentle swell. Cape Clear has about 130 people living there permanently – all speaking Irish to varying degrees. That had dropped from a pre-famine population of over…

Irish Roots and Irish Counties

Which Irish County Holds Your Irish Roots?

Which County in Ireland holds your Irish Roots? Everytime someone joins our “Letter from Ireland”, we ask the question: “Which County in Ireland did your Ancestors come from?” So far, we have had thousands of replies – and have built a list of 6470 entries. In the map above I have shown the distribution of…

The ruins of Ballincollig Castle - Home of the Barretts.

One Irish Castle and Many Irish Names

All of these castles and tower-houses have a history – and that history is usually intertwined with the history and genealogy of different Irish families. Just this morning, I took the car to Ballincollig – our local town – to get two new tyres. Instead of waiting, I decided to go for a walk and…

castle in the water, when to hire a genealogist

Irish Genealogy – When to Hire a Genealogist

So, I got in touch with Noreen Maher of Hibernia Roots and asked her some questions that we  frequently come across in our reader forum. The purpose of this interview was to: Look at Irish family history research from the perspective of an active Genealogist on the ground. Provide you with a means of deciding…