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

Sheeps Head Peninsula and Bantry on the Wild Atlantic Way

I can’t believe the weather we were having for a June weekend – hardly a cloud in the sky, only a light breeze and warming up nicely! It was early on a Saturday morning – the roads were quite empty and we stopped at the little village of Ahakista just to take in the views…

Clonakilty to Baltimore on the Wild Atlantic Way

The small village of Rathbarry (guess which family that was named after) and the nearby Castlefreke overlooking Long strand are our first stops along the way. We called to Castlefreke many times over the years – it has been abandoned and falling into decay since the mid-20th century. Apparently the last title-holder was a nationalist…

Skibbereen to Mizen Head on the Wild Atlantic Way

We pick up on our next leg of the Wild Atlantic Way – travelling from Skibbereen to Mizen Head in County Cork – after leaving Cape Clear behind us. This leg feels like “home territory” for me as I know the area well – my own family of Collins’ came from outside the village of Ballydehob.

Do You Have an Irish Surname Question?

This is the part of the letter from Ireland where I (Mike) will attempt to answer all your Irish surname questions – or at least steer you in the right direction. All you need to do is to write out your question in the comments section at the end of this page – and I’ll…

County Tipperary Surnames and Places

When someone signs up for our weekly Letter from Ireland, we ask them for the Irish surnames in their family and the counties in Ireland their ancestor came from originally. As a result, we now have about 25,000 entries on our list. The following names are ones we received from readers whose ancestors came from…