2.5 million images of Irish births, deaths and marriage records from the General Register Office are available online

In September 2015, over 2.5 million images of Irish births, deaths and marriage records from the General Register Office (GRO), were released online for the first time. The images, available on www.irishgenealogy.ie, date back as far as 1864. Among the records are the birth, marriage and death register for Tom Crean, the Antarctic explorer. Crean’s grandson Brendan O’Brien joined the Irish Government Ministers Heather Humphreys and Leo Varadkar at the release launch event at the National Library. The online database also includes death register entries for the Leaders of the 1916 Rising, including James Connolly, Thomas Clarke, Padraig H Pearse, and Eamonn Ceannt.

Patrick Kavanagh Country, Co Monaghan

Patrick Kavanagh Country, Co Monaghan You’ve heard of Yeats Country. You know Joyce’s Dublin. Seamus Heaney is soon to get his own visitor centre in Bellaghy. So why, oh why, is the gorgeously intimate landscape of Patrick Kavanagh’s life and poetry so off-radar? Within a 13.5km walk, cycle or drive from the heritage centre in Inniskeen, you’ll find the poet’s grave (a modest wooden cross), the family homestead, Billy Brennan’s Barn and Inniskeen Road, where the bicycles went by in twos and threes on that eponymous July evening. Monaghan has its magic, all right –   The bicycles go by in twos and threes – There’s a dance in Billy […]

Star Wars’ is coming back, but should it be a welcome guest on ancient Skellig

Skellig Michael: Is 6th-century rock star selling out to a galaxy far, far away? The Force Awakens Graham Clifford PUBLISHED06/09/2015 | 02:30 SHARE ‘Star Wars’ is coming back, but should it be a welcome guest on ancient Skellig, asks our reporter. SHARE Just days old, the little bird would easily fit into the palm of my hand. Nestled between the stone walls of a monastic beehive hut, the grey, fluffy storm petrel chick is ­sheltered from the elements. In ­another corner I hear a Manx ­shearwater cooing as the winds  roll in from the Atlantic. This is Skellig Michael, monastic rock, ecological paradise and since last year, a film set. […]