We landed in St. John’s, Newfoundland at 11.00am local time. Just 3.5 hours behind Ireland (Cork, actually) – and the 5 hour plane trip was quite a lot less than our ancestors had to endure. I must say (unlike the photo above – which was taken later in the week) – the environment looked quite…

Read More

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…

Read More

When we hear the word “Norman” in Ireland today, we often think of the “Anglo-Norman” invasion of Ireland in 1170 that we learned about in school. Many of my own friends today have Norman surnames – Roche, Barry, Fitzgerald and so on. We attended the same classes in school, played for the same teams and…

Read More
Irish tower

You can listen to the show on your computer/smartphone by clicking on the play button above (the triangle with the circle around it). You can also download the show onto your computer by clicking on the download symbol. Enjoy! Episode Summary: Welcome to Season 4, Episode 2 of the Letter from Ireland Show. Join us on…

Read More