I can't find the posting in which someone remarked on no/few records being available for the Irish population prior to the 1700s. I then ran across the following item, which at least shows that there is a contemporary group actively looking in to several topics in that time period. Sharon Carberry Georgia USA administrator of Irish Research Support Group a YahooGroup Gaelic Ireland, c.1250-c.1650 : land, lordship, and settlement / Duffy, Patrick J. Edwards, David, 1963- FitzPatrick, Elizabeth. / Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement. ISBN: 1851825479 Dublin ;Portland, OR: Four Courts Press for the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement, c2001. Description: 454 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm. Subjects: Land tenure - Ireland - History. Land settlement - Ireland - History. Landlord and tenant - Ireland - History. Celts - Ireland - History. Ireland - History - 1172-1603. Ireland - History - 17th century. Notes: Largely papers originally presented at a conference held at All Hallows College, Dublin, in Feb. 1999. -Includes bibliographical references and indexes. - Contents: Collaboration without Anglicisation : the MacGiollapadraig Lordship and Tudor reform / David Edwards -- Delusion of Dâal Riada : the co-ordiantes of Mac Domnaill power, 1461-1550 / Simon Kingston -- Social and spatial order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla in the late sixteenth century / Patrick F. Duffy -- Fosterage and gossiprid in late medieval Ireland : some new evidence / Fiona Fitzsimons -- The mapping of Ireland's cultural landscape, 1550-1630 / John H. Andrews -- Woodland cover in pre-modern Ireland / Kenneth Nicholls -- Tephra-dated pollen studies of medieval landscapes in the north of Ireland / Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting -- Settlement and place-names / Nollaig âO Muraâile -- Native sources for Gaelic settlement : the house poems / Katharine Simms -- An architectural history of Gaelic castles and settlements, 1370-1600 / Rolf Loeber -- Tower houses and late medieval secular settlement in county Limerick / Colm F. Donnelly -- The morphology of Gaelic lordly sites in North Connacht / Kieran D. O'Conor -- The archaeology of Gaelic lordship east and west of the Foyle / Thomas E. McNeill -- Assembly and inauguration places of the Burkes in late medieval Connacht / Elizabeth FitzPatrick -- 'Dwelling houses in the old Irish barbarous manner' : archaeological evidence for Gaelic architecture in an Ulster plantation village / Audrey F. Horning -- Crannogs in late medieval Gaelic Ireland, c.1350-c.1650 / - Contents: Aidan O'Sullivan -- The maritime cultural landscape in medieval Gaelic Ireland / Colin Breen .

"CarberryGenealogy" <smc85p@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:nKCdnakU6p0QzH_fRVn-3A@comcast.com... > Gaelic Ireland, c.1250-c.1650 : land, lordship, and settlement / > Duffy, Patrick J. Edwards, David, 1963- FitzPatrick, Elizabeth. / > Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement. > ISBN: 1851825479 Sounds of interest. Dave Edwards was supposed to be giving a speech at a conference in September: www.youghalchamber.ie/heritageweek.html