Irish Lives Remembered Magazine

The latest issue of the free online magazine Irish Lives Remembered is now available.

Articles in this issue include : 

Declan Byrne – Remembering William Deans and the History of the Dublin Docks

Fiona Fitzsimons – Taylor-Made: The Swift Family‘s Irish Immigrant Love Story

Brigit McCone – Lover: Letters from the Scandalous 19th-century Irish Diaspora

David Caron – Dublin’s Stained Glass: Highlights by Harry Clarke

Katharine Simms – Saints and Scholars: the Magrath Clan and other Erenagh Hereditary Church Families

Eamonn P. Kelly – Domhnach Mám Éan, the Connemara Harvest Festival

Donna Rutherford – Genealog-AI: How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Family History

 

1926 Irish Census Release

The 1926 Census of Ireland will be released online for free by the National Archives of Ireland on April 18, 2026, marking 100 years since it was taken. This release will provide fully searchable, detailed records of over 700,000 households in the Irish Free State, filling a major gap in genealogical records between 1911 and modern times. 

• Access: The records will be free and fully searchable, featuring names, addresses, occupations, and Irish language proficiency.
• Scope: Covers the 26 counties of the Irish Free State; unfortunately, Northern Ireland records from 1926 did not survive.
• Significance: It is the first major census release since 1911, offering a detailed snapshot of Irish society shortly after independence.
• Context: The release is accompanied by a public program including a documentary, exhibitions, and a book examining the 1926 revealing a diverse population.

Website Wednesday - Accredited Genealogists Ireland

Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI) is the accrediting and representative body for professional genealogists on the island of Ireland (Ireland and Northern Ireland). The Association was established in 1986 to set a high standard of work among its members and to protect the interests of its members and their clients.  To qualify for membership, a genealogist’s work is reviewed by an Independent Board of Assessors.

In addition to working as professional genealogists undertaking commissioned research, many members also share their expertise through lectures and courses on genealogy, both in Ireland and internationally. They contribute to the field by publishing books on genealogy and history, and their knowledge is often sought after for appearances on TV and radio programmes. 

Since its foundation, AGI has maintained its position at the forefront of Irish genealogy advocating for the preservation of and maintaining access to records for genealogists and family historians in the future.

Late last year, Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI) released two additional free publications in its Irish census records series: “1911 Census of Ireland: a guide for family history researchers” and “Beyond Form A: unlocking the hidden depths of the Irish census“. 

Irish Heritage News

Do you have Irish ancestry?  Would you like to know more about researching your Irish ancestry and what resources are available, especially what's new?  Then Irish Heritage News can help.

 
The website features Irish genealogy news round-ups, sharing the latest developments and discoveries in Irish family history research, from newly digitized records and online tools to local projects and events. Highlights include new burial, church, land, school and census-substitute records from across Ireland, as well as expanded Irish newspaper collections on multiple subscription sites. There are often lots of upcoming webinars and advice sessions covering essential genealogy topics, along with special offers.

Irish Heritage News is an independent source for Ireland’s heritage stories, delivering a mix of featured articles, breaking news, guides, explainers, exclusives and other original content. Headquartered in West Cork, the team undertakes novel historical and archaeological research into a broad range of subjects spanning the earliest times to the present day.  

Irish Heritage News also publishes a free online newsletter. 

New Records for the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland

Many genealogists with Irish ancestry are familiar with the fate of the Public Record Office of Dunbin.  On 30 June 1922, Office was destroyed in a fire during the Irish Civil War. Centuries of Irish historical records were lost, including many of those relating to family history. 

 
In 2022, to mark the 100^th anniversary of the fire, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) was launched – an ambitious attempt to reconstruct the Public Record Office of Ireland with digitised copies of Irish documents from around the world.  The treasury is an ever-growing, open-access resource, freely and permanently available online to all those interested in Ireland’s deep history, at home and abroad.

On 30 June 2025, to mark its third anniversary, the VRTI announced that it had added a major new collection of records, including 60,000 19^th-century census records.

A spokesperson for the VRTI has said that although some of the new census records on the VRTI include the census fragments already available on the National Archives of Ireland’s website, the majority were new collections, from transcripts and duplicates from archives and other cultural institutions across the island of Ireland and around the world.

Dr Peter Crooks of Trinity College Dublin, Academic Director of the VRTI, said: “What we have uncovered after years of painstaking archival work will help families across the world trace their story deeper into the Irish past.”

So take a look at the VRTI and see what records they may have to help you discover more about your Irish ancestors.

Historic Graves Ireland

 
The Historic Graves project is a community focused grassroots heritage project. Local community groups are trained in low-cost high-tech field survey of historic graveyards and recording of their own oral histories. They build a multi-media online record of the historic graves in their own areas and unite to form a national resource. The project outlines a system and sequence which helps to co-ordinate and standardise an historic graveyard survey.

• Community groups are trained to use digital cameras and smartphones to survey historic graveyards.
• Both new and old survey records are combined with locally recorded audio and video stories to form a multi media record of a graveyard.
• By curating and publishing the survey records centrally the individual community graveyard surveys combine to form a national resource where the value of each survey is compounded by its association with others.
• The website allows visitors from Ireland and across the globe to freely explore and search the growing database of multimedia records and stories.
• It allows communities to self publish historic graveyard surveys and the related multimedia stories.
• The surveys are being funded by a number of Local Development Partnerships through LEADER funds and are supported by Local Heritage Officers, County Archaeologists and Local Authorities.

 The project currently focuses mainly on Ireland, although it also lists a few locations elsewhere in Britain, such as St Chad in Manchester and the Necropolis in Glasgow.

Rippling Effects of the Great Irish Famine - Lecture Series

 
Do you have Irish ancestry?  Would you like to know more about the effects of the Great Irish Famine on your ancestors?  Commencing Thursday 30^th January 2025 for 5 weeks, this free online lecture series may be for you.  Delivered by the Armagh City Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council, each lecture will be recorded and uploaded to Councils YouTube channel to accommodate those unable to attend live.

Each lecture is described on the website as follows :

30^th January @ 7pm (GMT)
“Children in Irish workhouses during and after the Great Famine”.
Dr Simon Gallaher
Dr Simon Gallaher is a historian of childhood and deprivation. His doctoral thesis, completed in 2020 at the University of Cambridge, is entitled ‘Children and Childhood under the Irish Poor Law, c. 1850-1914’.  He has written on various aspects of the Irish workhouse system, including the composition of families, the long-term effect of the Great Famine on children’s experiences in the institution, and on the cultural imaginings of the workhouse child. 

6^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“Of Monsters and ogres: Evicting the poor during Ireland’s Great Famine”.
Dr Ciarán Reilly – Maynooth University.
Dr Ciarán Reilly is a historian of nineteenth and twentieth century Irish social history at the Department of History, Maynooth University with a special interest in The Great Irish Famine.  He is also Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates at the Department of History.  Ciarán is the author of several books including The Irish Land Agent (2014); Strokestown and the Great Irish Famine (2014) and John Plunket Joly and the Great Famine in King’s County (2012) and was co-editor of Dublin and the Great Irish Famine (2022).

13^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“Popular piety in Ireland the pre-Famine and post-Famine periods”.
Prof. Salvador Ryan – St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth.
Salvador Ryan Professor of Ecclesiastical History, St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth where he writes on religious and cultural history from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Other published titles include Death and the Irish, Marriage and the Irish, and Birth and the Irish (2016-21); Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives (2020); Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations (2022) and Reforming the Church: Global Perspectives (2023).

“Rippling Effects of The Great Irish Famine: Separated from family by crime and transportation”.
Dr Perry McIntyre AM – Visiting Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia.
Dr Perry McIntyre has been involved in genealogical research for over 40 years which is where her interest in emigration from Ireland began. She has served on the council of the Society of Australian Genealogists (20 years) as well as the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Catholic Historical Society, the History Council of NSW including being chair for 2 years and other local societies such her local Mosman Historical Society. Perry’s PhD was on reunion of convict with their families, published by Irish Academic Press as Free Passage: The Reunion of Irish Convicts and their Families in Australia 1788-1852 (2011). In 2021 Perry was awarded an order of Australia (AM) for services to history and genealogy. Her current research is the workhouse orphan emigration scheme during the Famine years 1848-1850.  She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales.

20^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“The Great Famine on the Powerscourt Estate (Benburb district) and along the Blackwater, 1845-52”.
Dr Dónal McAnallen – National Museums Northern Ireland
Dr Dónal is Library and Archives Manager for National Museums NI, based at Cultra, where he has recently devised Irish-language and Ulster-Scots-themed trails of Ulster Folk Museum. He is current Editor of Dúiche Néill: the Journal of the Ó Neill Country Historical Society. This talk is based on research initiated by his late father on the subject of The Great Famine in the Benburb district, Co. Tyrone.  

27^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“Mothering and infant feeding in the workhouse during the Great Irish Famine”.
Judy Bolger – Trinity College Dublin
Judy Bolger is a PhD candidate at Trinity College, Dublin. Her PhD examined the social discourse surrounding impoverished mothers and women’s experiences of maternity and motherhood in Irish workhouses during the late nineteenth-century. The research was funded by the Trinity College, Dublin 1252 Postgraduate Research Scholarship. She has published works on mothers and the workhouse in Salvador Ryan (ed.), Birth and the Irish: a Miscellany (2021) and in Historical Studies, vol. 19 (2019). Judy works in the Academic Resource Office of Carlow College, St Patrick and is the Book Review Editor for the Women’s History Association of Ireland. She has a keen interest in the history of poverty, motherhood, and infant care. Her M.Phil. thesis research examined the social history of Irish breastfeeding during the nineteenth century.

I'm looking forward to listening in on this lecture series and learning more about the Famine and its impact on my Irish ancestors.

Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland was created through a five-year State-funded program of research entitled ‘Beyond 2022'.  It is funded by the Government of Ireland under Project Ireland 2040 through the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. 

 Led by researchers at Trinity College Dublin, the program "combines historical investigation, archival discovery, conservation and technical innovation to re-imagine and recreate, through digital technologies, the archive lost on June 30th, 1922, in the opening engagement of the Civil War".

Many genealogists with Irish family history have mourned the loss of records that were the result of the Dublin Records Office fire.  Combined with the destruction of the historic Irish censuses, the loss has made the task of researching Irish ancestors more difficult.

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland is an open-access resource, freely and permanently available online to all those interested in Ireland’s history at home and abroad. The website states that "our extensive and growing treasury of digitized records—scattered over space and time, but now reunited on-screen—brings ordinary lives buried in official documents back into the light". 

By 2022, over 70 archives, libraries and societies in Ireland, Britain and the United States have formally joined the enterprise to bring the destroyed Record Treasury back to life. 

Ireland's Genealogical Gazette

The June issue of Ireland's Genealogical Gazette,  published free online monthly by the Genealogical Society of Ireland, is out now.

 
In this issue :

• Genealogy & GDPR
• Ireland’s Ordnance Survey
• GSI Board News
• Irish History with Davy
• Demographic History
• Open Meetings Schedule
• James Scannell Reports..
• Précis of the May Lecture
• Military Archives Release
• Donations to GSI
• GSI Board Members

Also available online are previous gazettes dating back to 2006 and a range of other resources, so check out their website to see what they have to offer.

Irish Lives Remembered

The latest issue of the free online magazine Irish Lives Remembered is now available.

In this issue : 

Articles: 

• Mike Feerick - Chuck Feeney: An Appreciation
• Fiona Fitzsimons – Remembering Chuck Feeney: the Entrepreneur Philanthropist’s Longford Lineage
• Cara Eiwanger – The Myth of Irish-American Acceptance in the Mid-nineteenth Century
• Donna Rutherford – A Deep Dive into Ethnicity Estimates
• Rob Flanagan Stieglitz – Case Study: Resolving the Mystery of My Ancestor Thomas Tighe’s Birthdate
• Eamonn P. Kelly – The mysterious Bishop Erc: Saint and Sun God, Part One
• Katharine Simms – Saints and Scholars: the Keenan/O’Keenan Clan and Other Hereditary Historians
• Brigit McCone – Doctoring Dynasties: The Legacy of Irish Medicine in Africa
• Deirdre Powell – The Irish Family Legacy of Mathematical Genius George Boole
• Elizabeth Cowan - “Send you kisses”: Sapphic Revolutionaries, part 2
• Timothy Murtagh – Henrietta Street: From Townhouse to Tenement

Regular columns: 

• Dear Genie - Our Genealogists help you with your research block
• Heritage Highlight - Strokestown Park’s National Famine Museum
• Emerald Roots Interview – Kayleigh Bealin, Research Manager, Eneclann 

Books and Films:

• Four Courts Press Book Excerpt – Medieval Dublin XIX edited by Seán Duffy (2023)
• Four Courts Press Book Excerpt – Marsden Haddock and the Androides by Neil Cronin (2023)
• Genealogical Publishing Company Book Excerpt – A Guide to Irish Parish Registers by Brian Mitchell (1988)