Do you have Irish surnames in your family tree? If the answer is yes, then read on – and discover more about the surnames of Ireland, where they come from – and see if you can spot some of your Irish surnames.

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.

A Special Saint Patrick’s Day Message to all of our readers

He has sent on the above message especially for our readers and members on this Saint Patrick’s Day. For those of you who do not know President Higgins, he is held in high esteem by the vast majority of the people on this island. He is a scholar, a poet – and was a political…

Saints, Scholars and Irish Family Surnames

A few weeks back, I mentioned Thomas Cahill’s book “How the Irish Saved Civilisation” – and I know a lot of our readers have already come across it. It tells the story of how Irish monks set about preserving Greek, Roman and early Christian knowledge through their manuscripts and teaching. It’s a wonderful little book…

Which Part of the Irish Diaspora do you come from?

When a new reader signs up for our weekly Letter from Ireland – we ask them to supply the Irish surnames in their family tree AND the county their ancestor emigrated from. So far we have collected over 21,000 Irish entries in our database of Irish surnames representing over 3,750 different surnames. If you’d like to…