Explore the Druidic families of Ireland and their professions in this week’s letter. Some Irish surnames are associated with professions, such as “Hickey” for “Healer” and “Ward” for “son of the Bard”. Who knows, your family might have inherited a trait from these ancient times!

The Mother & Baby Homes of Ireland (#736)

In this week’s episode we look at the way that unmarried mothers – and other “social undesirables” were treated in Ireland, especially in the period from the 1940s to the 1960s. Carina reads out two letters – one on the Magdalene Laundries and the other shares the story of one mother who never gave up…

An Irish Placename Travels Abroad to the City of Baltimore.

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…

Philomena

Given that you are reading this letter, can I assume that you have an interest in your Irish Heritage and ancestry? Now, let me ask you this – when did you develop this interest? For a few of us, it’s always been there – for others, a curiosity appears in our forties or fifties –…

The Stone Circles and Druids of Ireland

Have you heard of the Druids of Ireland? Long before Christianity reached Ireland’s shores, there was a complex culture of beliefs involving the practices of law, medicine, and the oral tradition. In this letter we discuss the Druids, the ancient intellectual class of ancient Ireland.