CREELS My father spent hours trimming the edges of the newly cut sally rods, to make creels for taking the turf over the soft soil of the bog, so that the horse and cart could bring it home for the winter time. I watched how he scalloped the edges, tightly tied and intricately weaved the freshwood. He was making tools, repairing them. Busy with his hands, he wasted no time, took no holidays, or trips away, except once a year, cycling to Mohill for the Manachan Day Fair with my mother. When they got home, the sun was a low ember, the cows milked. SNOW MORNING I walk to work along the Shelbourne Road, after the Christmas holiday Inches of snow cover over the gardens; on the trees each branch looks like a stroke of artist's white paint, and lilies laden with delicate meringues form fairy designs. Bunches of red fruit on the cotoneaster give a warm glow to the cold day. Hedges, stifled from constant trimming, bear spheres of whiteness,squashed into the tight branches; the grass is covered in a cotton carpet, and sleet drops mark out a pattern, reminding me of the farm after a snowfall, when the hens criss-crossed the garden outside the kitchen window. -- Posted by permission. Mary was born in 1942 in Kiltoghert, Co. Leitrim, one of a family of seven, her childhood spent on a totally self-sufficient, organic farm. She began to work with Leitrim and Sligo County Councils, moved to Dublin, but eventually left Ireland at different times to live and work - Sydney, Tasmania, the Channel Islands and Oxford. Throughout a life of participation within the arts, she has published poetry and fiction and is also an accomplished photographer whose work has been exhibited in a number of locations. Her photography of rural Ireland formed a postcard series available in Ireland during the 1980s. Some of her photos and reminisces are included in her little softcover books of poetry - "Perfume of the Soil" (1999) and "The Road to Gowel." (2000). Some verses in the latter volume also speak of modern Ireland and life in the city. Mary has won awards for her poetry, which has appeared in a number of literary journals. She has been a me! mber of the Rathmines Writers' Group, some of her longer poems have been broadcast by RTE and Anna Livia Radio. Mary has also participated in cultural exchanges with Boston. Her observations, emotions and sheer ability to go straight to the heart of a subject make her work popular and celebratory. Living in Dublin, she continues to work and write with frequent trips back to visit relatives in Leitrim.

We visited St. Michan's and the crusader remains about 5 years ago.  It took some persistence over a period of 2 years to finally be able to access the graves.  For a senior traveler, access can be quite difficult.  It is worth attempting to be escorted down to the crypt.  Unfortunately during the 2 years we had tried to visit, (i.e. church closed, a holy day, no guide available etc.) there was flooding and damage by vandals.  I would suggest writting or calling ahead if you are going to be in Dublin.   Mary Ellen Chambers --- On Fri, 12/12/08, Jean R. <jeanrice@cet.com> wrote: From: Jean R. <jeanrice@cet.com> Subject: [IRELAND] St. Michan's - Dublin's oldest church - "grisly" crypts To: IRELAND-L@rootsweb.com Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 1:18 AM SNIPPET: Three metres below Dublin's oldest church, you can stare death in the face. He has been staring back 800 years. For travelers who have already explored Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Michan's, Church Street, is one of the capital's best ecclesiastical surprises. Built on the site of an 11th century Hiberno-Viking Church, St. Michan's, (named for a Danish bishop), is an unprepossessing sight on the outside in industrial Church Street, a few blocks north of the River Liffey. The exterior is barnacled with tired gray stucco, and the church entry is shadowed and gloomy. It is one of Dublin's well-kept secrets and well worth a visit, per traveller's own reviews on the TripAdvisor website, and in various guide-books and travel magazines. The church's interior contains fine woodwork and houses a richly carved organ loft where HANDEL played. But it's to the crypts that most of St. Michan's curious come. They long to hear the nerve-fraying creak, ducking their heads and stepping down into the limestone tunnels that Vikings dug a millennium ago-to see the spot where one stack of dusty coffins toppled over, leaving their burdens jumbled onto the rocky floor. Over time, limestone walls, cool temperatures and soil emissions have conspired to create this grisly tourist attraction. Shrunken, leathery, the four macabre bodies are in a miraculous state of preservation so many centuries after their final farewells. There is the nun, buried in the 1500s, the thief, whose right hand and feet were chopped off for stealing from the church, and a third body, still untraced in the jumble of forgotten coffins. But the grandest find was that of the crusader, a brave Dubliner who had gone to his glory perhaps 850 years ago. Truly spooky, and perhaps best suited to older children. Guided tour available for small charge. Opening times vary, so call to confirm specifics. It is said that St. Michan's crypts provided the inspiration for writer Bram STOKER's "Dracula." ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRELAND-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

SNIPPET: Wicklow Gaol: Experience the harshness of life in the Gaol Dungeon, where you will see the punishments being meted out and hear the anguished cries of the prisoners, or just sit in the solitude cell and feel the desperation of those that were there before you. Come meet Mary MORRIS, the 19th century Gaol Matron, sit in her school room and listen as she instructs you in the lessons of the day. Work commenced on Wicklow Gaol in 1702 and was completed within a few years. Conditions within the Gaols at this time were appalling. Gaolers were paid a wage and from this expected to supply prisoners with food, bedding, heat, lighting and clothing. Many of these Gaolers were themselves unsavory characters and with little, if any, supervision of the prison system, they were open to bribery and corruption. Prisoners were held together in rooms and it was not until prison legislation in 1763 that the separation of prisoner - male and female, tried from untried and sane from insane was introduced. From the 1760s onwards legislation was enacted and an attempt to provide better sanitation and living conditions for prisoners was eventually put into operation on the ground. The 1798 Rebellion put considerable pressure on the physical structure of Wicklow Gaol and a new wing was erected in the 1790s. Some of the 1,798 rebels - United Irishmen - such as Bill BYRNE (whose monument stands in Wicklow's Market Square) were hanged in or near the Gaol. Another leader of the United Irishmen, James 'Napper' TANDY was held in Wicklow Gaol prior to his deportation to France. Hugh Vesty BYRNE, a first cousin of Michael DWYER, 'the Wicklow Chieftain,' was one of the few prisoners ever to have escaped from the Gaol and remain at large. More info: www.wicklowshistoricgaol.com. The Gaol is closed during the winter months from the 31st October until St. Patrick's weekend in March.

SNIPPET: A 19th-century mainland Irish farmer, when heading for church in his Sunday best (perhaps only a cleaner version of his everyday garb) could be seen clad in top hat, tweed jacket, wool waistcoat, and knee-length breeches - his wife dressed in a bulky skirt called a drugget with petticoat underneath, a flourbag apron, her head and shoulders covered with a plaid shawl. Olive SHARKEY is the authoress of several interesting books including "Old Days, Old Ways" published in 1996. In an article in "Irish Roots" periodical, published in Cork, she tells us that early shoes were fashioned from a single piece of leather or rawhide, and were known as "pampooties." Moreover, they were in use on the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway until quite recently. Composite shoes with a separate heel appeared during the late 16th century and were known as brogues. They were generally fairly crudely fashioned for the native Irish, and were made by the local shoemaker at his "last." For many people, children in particular, shoes were reserved for Sunday wear and winter use only. "Hobnail boots," worn from the middle of 19th century, were introduced from America and proved popular with the farmers, being strong with excellent grip. Children's sizes were made, but it was much more common to find children running about barefoot, the hard soles of their feet seemingly immune to the sharp corners of pebbles and stones. An add-on to one's shoes was a pair of wooden pattens. These were pulled on over the shoes to protect the feet on wet or muddy ground by lifting them up as if on mini stilts and mainly used in the wintertime. Wool was the most commonly used natural fibre, with linen and cotton sharing second place. In poor areas the wool was collected from hedges and brought to the spinner who then teased, carded and spun it ready for the weaver or knitter. The weaver wove tweed which was dyed in suitably sombre colours - bottle green, navy, brown and black. Finely woven tweed was reserved for men's suits, while the rougher, more open tweed was fashioned into drugget skirts, greatcoats, etc. The knitters made shawls, sweaters, hats, and "leggings" (footless stockings sometimes known as "Paddy Martins"). Leggings were worn by Irish women to prevent the damp ends of their long skirts from causing scalding of the calves. Originally frieze hose was used for the fashioning of footwear, but they tended to keep slipping on poorly shaped legs. It wasn't until the early 1600s that Irish women began knitting stockings. For a time their early knitted stockings were known as "Jersey" socks. Women generally wore hats as well as shawls during the day. They weren't very warm hats; fashioned from cotton, they were bonnet-shaped and had pleated or lacy edging which had to be ironed with a special iron known as a "tallon iron" (a corruption of the world 'Italian', as this type of iron originated in Italy). Both little boys and little girls were dressed up in bonnets and dresses when they were young, but as they grew older the boys wore knee-length breeches like their fathers and happily discarded the bonnets. Young man generally preferred some kind of cap to hats but older men were often seen about town in their hard top hats, the length of which grew shorter as the 19th century came to a close. Tweed caps were the norm by the turn of the century. In parts of the west, and on the Aran Islands in particular, the "bainin cap," knitted by hand to match the sweaters, and in more recent times popularised by the singing group, the Clancy Brothers, was and still is preferred. Tweed peaked caps were also used. Breeches were kept secure with the help of braces or a strong leather belt, a useful accessory when a youngster required corporal punishment! Strap belts were common on the mainland, but the colourful hand-woven woolen "crios" strip was the norm on the Aran Islands. Women did not often wear coats, except perhaps in wintertime. When encountering an unexpected shower they had a knack of hoisting their skirt up over their head to form a makeshift shawl. In addition to the petticoat, or sometimes a few layers of petticoats, an apron was worn. This was a useful accessory, providing them with a receptacle for sticks for the fire, apples from the orchards, eggs from the hens' nests, and when the crops were being sown, grain or even potatoes. The Aran Islands are known for their pampooties, colourful shawls and crios -- all of which are virtually museum pieces these days. Only the "Aran sweater" has survived into modern fashion, and has changed little in the transition. The complicated stitches have survived, and in "authentic" versions the plain creamy white is preferred. Most are hand-knitted, and some contain some lanolin which renders them as useful as the oil-rich originals.

SNIPPET: Three metres below Dublin's oldest church, you can stare death in the face. He has been staring back 800 years. For travelers who have already explored Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Michan's, Church Street, is one of the capital's best ecclesiastical surprises. Built on the site of an 11th century Hiberno-Viking Church, St. Michan's, (named for a Danish bishop), is an unprepossessing sight on the outside in industrial Church Street, a few blocks north of the River Liffey. The exterior is barnacled with tired gray stucco, and the church entry is shadowed and gloomy. It is one of Dublin's well-kept secrets and well worth a visit, per traveller's own reviews on the TripAdvisor website, and in various guide-books and travel magazines. The church's interior contains fine woodwork and houses a richly carved organ loft where HANDEL played. But it's to the crypts that most of St. Michan's curious come. They long to hear the nerve-fraying creak, ducking their heads and stepping down into the limestone tunnels that Vikings dug a millennium ago-to see the spot where one stack of dusty coffins toppled over, leaving their burdens jumbled onto the rocky floor. Over time, limestone walls, cool temperatures and soil emissions have conspired to create this grisly tourist attraction. Shrunken, leathery, the four macabre bodies are in a miraculous state of preservation so many centuries after their final farewells. There is the nun, buried in the 1500s, the thief, whose right hand and feet were chopped off for stealing from the church, and a third body, still untraced in the jumble of forgotten coffins. But the grandest find was that of the crusader, a brave Dubliner who had gone to his glory perhaps 850 years ago. Truly spooky, and perhaps best suited to older children. Guided tour available for small charge. Opening times vary, so call to confirm specifics. It is said that St. Michan's crypts provided the inspiration for writer Bram STOKER's "Dracula."

The County Leitrim website has been updated and the Mohill Civil Parish webpage was added along with pages (168) for all the townlands found in the civil parish. Some pictures, maps, links and records were also added. You can find the site at both Ireland Geological Projects at: http://www.igp-web.com/leitrim/index.htm And at Ireland GenWeb at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/~irllet/ If you still access the site through Rootsweb, it would be better to change your bookmark to one of the above sites. If you would like to contribute records, pictures, surname links, maps etc., please contact me off the list. Also, if you find any mistakes, let me know also off list. -- Pat Connors, Sacramento CA http://www.connorsgenealogy.com

THERE WERE ROSES My song for you this evening, it's not to make you sad Nor for adding to the sorrows of this troubled northern land, But lately I've been thinking and it just won't leave my mind I'll tell you of two friends one time were both good friends of mine. Allan Bell from Banagh, he lived across the fields A great man for the music and the dancing and the reels. O'Malley came from South Armagh to court young Alice fair. And we'd often meet on the Ryan Road and the laughter filled the air. There were roses, roses There were roses And the tears of the people Ran together Though Allan, he was Protestant, and Sean was Catholic born, It never made a difference for the friendship it was strong And sometimes in the evening when we heard the sound of drums We said, "It won't divide us. We always will be one." For the ground our fathers plowed in, the soil it is the same, And the places where we say our prayers have just got different names. We talked about the friends who died, and we hoped there'd be no more. It's little then we realized the tragedy in store. It was on a Sunday morning when the awful news came round. Another killing has been done outside Newry Town. We knew that Allan danced up there, we knew he liked the band When we heard that he was dead we just could not understand. We gathered at the graveside on that cold and rainy day, And the minister he closed his eyes and prayed for no revenge, All of us who knew him from along the Ryan Road, We bowed our heads and said a prayer for the resting of his soul. Now fear, it filled the countryside. There was fear in every home When a car of death came prowling round the lonely Ryan Road. A Catholic would be killed tonight to even up the score. "Oh Christ! It's young O'Malley that they've taken from the door" "Allan was my friend," he cried. He begged them with his fear, But centuries of hatred have ears that cannot hear. An eye for an eye was all that filled their mind And another eye for another eye till everyone is blind. So my song for you this evening it's not to make you sad Nor for adding to the sorrows of your troubled northern land. But lately I've been thinking and it just won't leave my mind. I'll tell you of two friends one time who were both good friends of mine. I don't know where the moral is or where this wong should end. But I wondered just how many wars are fought between good friends. And those who give the orders are not the ones to die, It's Bell and O'Malley and the likes of you and I. There were roses, roses There were roses And the tears of the people Ran together -- Tommy Sands

Hi all, I'm new to Irish research and basically lost. My Great Great Grandmother Margaret Ennis Morgan, was born 1838 Ennis, Clare, Ireland, to Michael Morgan and Mary Reidy. She died in 1881 in Rutherglen Victoria Australia and is buried with her husband William Henry Warren (Cornishman). Can anyone let me know the first steps I should take to finding out about her birth, and her family? With Kindest Regards          Jo Ko MBA Melbourne Australia joko@tadaust.org.au "If you tell the truth You don't have to Remember anything" - Mark Twain

Hi Jo in Australia - Your most reliable information would come from the place your grandmother lived and died in Australia. Perhaps there is a will or some detailed death notices. Since spelling on early Irish records is suspect, and ages were sometimes "guessed at," it would be very hard (but not impossible) to pin down a match in Ireland. Check out this website: http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/genealog.htm Do you know if she married in Ireland or in Australia and when? Age at marriage? What sort of documentation do you have? What else does it say, a particular parish? Do you know approximate date she emigrated? Circumstances? Other family members emigrated? Do you have another family-connected surname? Long-shot: There were some MORGAN Sponsored Clare people in Victoria, Australia on one webpage but the ages didn't match. Morgan Margaret, 16, Co Clare, 146, 27 Nov 1856, Jessie Munn, Morgan Charles. Morgan William, 22, Co Clare, 146, 27 Nov 1856, Jessie Munn, Morgan Charles. Title: Selection of Clare people sponsored in Victoria, Australia Type of Material: Sponsored Immigration Records Dates: 1843 to 1857 Places: County Clare; Australia Source: PRO in Melbourne, Victoria. Victorian Sponsored Immigration Index 1856 to 1858 Nominee Order. Fiche 0001, Stand 7, Book 14A There was a page at that website with Ennis residents in the 1830s - some REEDYs but I didn't see your other surnames. Interesting in that your grandmother's middle name is ENNIS; since that is not her parents' surname, would that be a location name? ENNIS is a rare surname, and there was only one ENNIS household in Co. Clare during the Primary Valuation, per data at www.ireland.com/ancestor on the surname search engine. (If her middle name actually was a surname of importance to the family, that could help to narrow down a more precise location in Clare. An unusual first or middle name (usually that of a son) can be mother's maiden name or other surname of importance to the family, and I have seen that more often than a "locale-type" given name (?topographical). Per that website, REIDY is certainly a Clare surname with that particular spelling, although there are many variations. The table below shows the number of Reidy households in each county in the Primary Valuation property survey of 1848-64. Clare 93 Cork 6 Cork city 3 Down 1 Galway 4 Kerry 34 Limerick 45 Mayo 3 Tipperary 14 Wicklow 1 SURNAME DICTIONARY/ SLOINNTE NA h-EIREANN Mecredy Very rare: Dublin, Belfast. Ir. Mac Riada. See Mac Cready. Ready rare: Dublin. See Reidy. Reidy numerous: mainly N Munster. Ir. Ó Riada, perhaps from riad, trained. A sept of Dál gCas on the Tipperary side of L Derg, they were displaced after the Invasion but remained in Clare. MIF. Variants and all-Ireland totals - SURNAME TOTAL Cready 5 Creedy 2 McCready 144 McCredy 8 McCreedy 47 McGready 6 Mecredy 3 Ready 300 Reedy 23 Reidey 4 Reidy 204 Riedy 5 Variants not listed in the household survey. SURNAME MacRedy Readdy Ó Riada The website surname search & second surname search verifies that both REIDY and MORGAN households were found in the same parish in a handful of counties to include Co. Clare during the Primary Valuation. You might check that out. Interesting to note that there is an Ennis townland in Co. Monaghan, as well. I believe that Ennis, Clare, had another name in the mists of time (may have begun with In or Drom or Dru?) Ennis was also a PLU (Poor Law Union, nearest large town/reg. district) to many small townlands 1850s and prior. Please read about Ennis history on the web and see what you come up with. There is an IreAtlas (all-Ireland townland search engine for 1851) at the Leitrim-Roscommon website, but all I could find was a list of townlands in Co. Clare that had Ennis as their PLU, not a listing for Ennis townland or Ennis T. (town), even using the "begins with" search. Resources for their descendants in Ireland might include: www.familysearch.org Jean ---- Original Message ----- From: "Jo" <joko@tadaust.org.au> To: <IRELAND@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:08 AM Subject: [IRELAND] Morgans of Clare > Hi all, I'm new to Irish research and basically lost. My Great Great > Grandmother Margaret Ennis Morgan, was born 1838 Ennis, Clare, Ireland, to > Michael Morgan and Mary Reidy. She died in 1881 in Rutherglen Victoria > Australia and is buried with her husband William Henry Warren > (Cornishman). > Can anyone let me know the first steps I should take to finding out about > her birth, and her family? With Kindest Regards >      >     > Jo Ko MBA > Melbourne Australia > joko@tadaust.org.au

LIMITS So high in their leafy silence over Kells, over Durrow, as the Vikings raged south -- the old monks made the alphabet wild: they dipped iron into azure and indigo: they gave strange wings to their o's and e's: their vowels clung on with talons and the thin ribbed wolves that had gone north left their frozen winters and were lured back to their consonants. -- Ms. Eavan Boland (b. Dublin 1944) - apparently pertaining to the fanciful, highly decorated lettering on ancient books.

SNIPPET: The past is never very far away for the Irish. In fact, some people have said that the Irish are haunted by the past. One look at the landscape dotted with powerful reminders of history, from the huge stone "tables" of the ancient portal dolmen graves, to the ring forts, and standing stones with their primitive Ogham script, to the High Crosses and Round Towers, to the crumbling monastery and castle ruins, confirms the place of history in the Irish consciousness. The land itself is very much part of Irish history. Although the literary tradition did not begin until about the 8th century, the sagas then chronicled are actually the myths and legends of pre-literate, pagan Ireland - legends which survived for hundreds of years through a strong oral tradition. It is through these ancient sagas, tales that had flourished through the art of the storyteller, that we learn of Celtic life. There was no one definitive book we can turn to, to find the sagas because they are contained in several manuscripts including the "Book of the Dun Cow," the "Yellow Book of Lecan," and the "Book of Leinster." Early Irish legends describe the brave deeds of mythic heroic figures. One example - In the Celtic agrarian society cattle were the chief form of wealth, and cattle raids were the means to add to one's wealth. According to Irish legend, Queen Maeve's armies invade Ulster to capture and bring home to Connacht the magnificent brown bull of Cooley to satisfy the Queen's need to have more possessions than her husband. Although the story itself is improbable, we learn about the rich and powerful warrior life in ancient Ireland. The Celts were a warrior society; they were fierce fighters with a strong sense of justice. They were also rich in the arts and civilized life. Celtic society was rigidly stratified as the Brehon law tracts indicate, but the poets and storytellers were as revered as the aristocratic warriors. The clearest picture of the cultivation and imagination of the Celts can be seen in the richly ornamented metalwork of the La Tene style. When the first Christian missionaries came to Ireland is not known, but in the 5th century St. Patrick introduced Latin, writing, and the Christian creed to the Irish. A selection from his "Confession" recounts his wish to return to Ireland (he had been taken as a captive several years before and spent six years tending sheep in Antrim) as a Christian missionary after having a dream in which he was given a letter and heard the "voice of the Irish" ask him to "come and walk among us once more." "The confession," from his last years, is one of only two written works left by St. Patrick. Over the next five centuries the Irish developed many monasteries that flourished as centers of learning. These monasteries influenced all of Ireland, and the missionaries sent from them brought classical learning to the European countries. Monasteries that dotted the countryside such as Glendalough, Clonmacnoise, Kells, Armagh, were not only respected centers of learning, but producers of extraordinary art including illuminated manuscripts and liturgical objects in intricately-designed metalwork. Monasteries became large and important centers of wealth and cultural activity. The period is chiefly marked by the splendor of its religious art, of manuscript illumination (The "Book of Kells" and the "Book of Durrow")and stone sculpture (South Cross at Clonmacnoise and Muiredach's Cross at Monasterboice), and by the magnificence of its metal-working which captures three-dimensionally the heavily-decorated manuscript pages (Ardagh Chalice, Tara Brooch, many book shrines and reliquaries). Artistic achievement was given a new purpose by linking it to religious practice. In the monasteries, the very act of writing became a form of prayer. These scribes became the masters of Christian scholarship and their artwork became one of the greatest glories of Irish monasticism. As the monasteries grew, so did the demand for manuscripts. The production of manuscripts became important and large-scale. The earliest Irish manuscript, the "Cathach" of St. Columba, is a fragmentary liturgical book with simple initial decorations. This form found its highest expression in the extraordinary illuminated manuscript of the "Book of Kells," a masterpiece of the finest calligraphy and painting. In contrast to these busy, flourishing, scholarly centers were the small bands of self-exiled monks who sought the isolation and asceticism of life on a craggy island or mountaintop far away from the world and its problems. The monastic village perched atop the lonely rock of Skellig Michael in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Kerry is the site of six small beehive stone huts which have survived along with a small oratory where the monks gathered for prayer, and the ruins of a small church and a few tombstones. This was certainly a lonely and difficult way to worship God, but it also freed the monks from worldly interruptions and constraints and temptation. The illiterate, pagan Viking raiders who disrupted Irish manuscript production and monastic life in the 9th and 10th centuries were interested in the valuable, precious metals used for the book shrines and liturgical objects. The Irish response to the attacks was one of terror; the Vikings came to conquer. But these invaders were also sea-faring merchants who established the town of Dublin, and other coastal towns of Waterford, Wexford, Limerick and Cork. By the middle of the 10th century, these towns were thriving centers of trade with the rest of Europe. -- Excerpts, "The Irish, A Treasury of Art and Literature," ed. Leslie Conron Carola (1993).

SNIPPET: Perhaps you can still locate a copy of this book published by the Dolmen Press in 1985. A review in Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine called it an important and unusual book in that the author, Brother Timothy O'NEILL, FSC, is himself a scribe in the great tradition, and that there is a most interesting preface by Professor Francis John BYRNE, an authority on Irish manuscript tradition. Per review, "The publishers, deservedly of good repute, saw to it that this fine book is worthy of its subject." It presents an anthology of Irish manuscripts from the earliest times to the 17th century, with emphasis on the calligraphy employed in each case. Twenty-six of the most famous Irish manuscripts are illustrated with relevant commentaries, and the second part of the book deals with detailed specimens of the scripts used in each case followed by thirty examples which display the history and development of this extraordinary art into our own time.

Fellow researchers Last week when I created the searchable database I inadvertently omitted about half the records . This has now been corrected. Further, I have added a searchable database of grantor index transcriptions. http://members.pcug.org.au/~nickred/deeds/search_index.html http://members.pcug.org.au/~nickred/deeds_gg/gg_search_index.html -- Regards Nick /Home/ http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickred/ <http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Enickred/> /Sites managed/ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~registryofdeeds/index.html <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eregistryofdeeds/index.html> http://www.igrsoc.org/index.htm http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickred/majuratennis/ <http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Enickred/majuratennis/>

MEMORY OF MY FATHER Every old man I see Reminds me of my father when he had fallen in love with death One time when sheaves were gathered. That man I saw in Gardiner Street Stumble on the kerb was one, He stared at me half-eyed, I might have been his son. And I remember the musician Faltering over his fiddle In Bayswater, London, He too set me the riddle. Every old man I see In October-coloured weather Seems to say to me: 'I was once your father'. -- Patrick Kavanagh

SNIPPET: When America thinks of immigration, two images immediately spring to mind: the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that upwards of 16 million immigrants passed the Statue as they entered New York Harbor on their way to the inspection station at Ellis Island. One was surely a symbol of hope, the other a place of dread. Yet for the great majority of the millions of Irish who came to America, neither Lady Liberty nor Ellis Island played a role in their experience. The reason is simple enough: Most Irish immigrants arrived before the Statue (1886) and Ellis (1892) were built. The great symbol of Irish migration to America stands only a half mile away from these landmarks at the tip of Manhattan Island: Castle Garden. Originally constructed in 1811 as a fort named Castle Clinton (named in honor of Mayor DeWitt CLINTON, a descendent of Irish immigrants from County Longford), it was converted in the 1820s into a public venue for celebrations, exhibitions, and entertainment. Thousands of New Yorkers routinely thronged to the Castle for gala welcoming ceremonies for arriving dignitaries - from President Andrew JACKSON in the 1830s to Irish patriot Thomas Francis MEAGHER in the 1850s. By the mid-1840s the popularity of the site had grown such that a six-thousand-seat opera house named Castle Garden was constructed over the fort. In 1855, Castle Garden abruptly commenced its third unique historical phase, that of immigrant receiving center. Over the next thirty-five years more than eight million foreign arrivals were processed there (1.8 million Irish), a total second only to its successor, Ellis Island. Two things distinguished Castle Garden (and its counterparts in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and elsewhere) from Ellis Island. First, there was no rigorous inspection regimen (though immigrants were given quick health checks during periodic epidemic scares) . Second, there were no measures taken to protect newly arrived immigrants from the wily con men who prowled Lower Manhattan in search of easy prey. Sadly, these men used their ethnic credentials--a good Irish accent, or better still, the ability to speak Irish--to ensnare their fellow Hibernians. As one Irish priest observed in the 1850s: "The moment he landed his luggage was pounced upon by two runners, one seizing the box of tools, the other confiscating the clothes. The future American citizen assured his obliging friends that he was quite capable of carrying his own luggage; but no, they should relieve him--the stranger, and guest of the Republic--of that trouble. Each was in the interest of a different boarding-house, and each insisted that the young Irishman with the red head should go with him ... Not being able to oblige both gentlemen, he could oblige only one; and as the tools were more valuable than the clothes, he followed in the path of the gentleman who had secured that portion of the 'plunder' ... the two gentleman wore very pronounced green neck-ties, and spoke with a richness of accent that denoted special if not conscientious cultivation; and on his (the Irishman's) arrival at the boarding-house, he was cheered with the announcement that its proprietor was from 'the ould counthry,' and loved every sod of it, God bless it." -- Excerpts, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History," Edward T. O'Donnell (2002).

http://castlegarden.org/about.html Thanks, lister, for reminding me of this resource. Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> To: <IRELAND-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 4:24 PM Subject: [IRELAND] Walt WHITMAN, NY Poet,Noted Chronicler of American Life

If some programmer with extra time available could create a way to search the Archives by county, name, year and so on, that would be awesome! All those records in the Archives are great and I thank all who submitted them, but when a researcher doesn't have much information to pin a time or place on an ancestor, searching all those records can be a daunting task.

Hello I am looking forward to see the Census records for County Armagh where my mother was born and my grandparents too Thanks for the updates. JoAnne Stump On 05/12/08 10:37 PM, "Christina Hunt" <filidh@carolina.rr.com> wrote: > Genealogy

Sorry I am late with this update. These Counties and subject headings were added to in November. ================================= Antrim Genealogy Archives - Church Cork Headstone Photos Cork Genealogy Archives - Census Cork Genealogy Archives - Land Donegal Genealogy Archives - Headstone Photos Donegal Genealogy Archives - Vitals Down Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Dublin Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Dublin Genealogy Archives - Headstone Photos Galway Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Kerry Genealogy Archives - Headstones. Kildare Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Kilkenny Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Laois Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Leitrim Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Limerick Genealogy Archives - History Limerick Genealogy Archives - Headstone Photos Offaly (Kings) Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Roscommon Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Records Tipperary Genealogy Archives - Census Substitutes Tipperary Genealogy Archives - Headstones Tipperary Genealogy Archives - Photos Tipperary Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Tipperary Genealogy Archives - Newspaper Tipperary Genealogy Archives - Church Tyrone Genealogy Archives - Documents Wicklow Genealogy Archives - Headstone Index Wicklow Genealogy Archives - Cemetery Wicklow Genealogy Archives - Newspaper http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ Click on County and then subject heading. The link for submitting a file is: http://www.genrecords.org/irfiles/ Thanks, Christina *Please snip this list if you want to ask a question.

HISTORY: Walt WHITMAN 1819-1892) was born in West Hills, Long Island, NY, and grew up in Brooklyn. He was an American poet who sang the praises of the United States and democracy, and received literary acclaim from English writers long before American critics recognized him as a great poet. WHITMAN's love of America grew from his faith that Americans might reach new worldly and spiritual heights. He wrote: "The chief reason for the being of the United States of America is to bring about the common good will of all mankind, the solidarity of the world." Although he had only a few years of formal schooling, he took a series of jobs - reporter, editor, printer, schoolteacher, carpenter. As a preface to his collection of poems, "Leaves of Grass," he wrote: "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem." "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" tells of a little boy observing a mockingbird. The bird is mourning its mate, which was lost in a storm at sea. The bird's song teaches the boy the meaning of death and makes him decide to become a poet. The theme of the poem is that death is part of the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. WHITMAN wrote "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" on the death of Abraham LINCOLN. WHITMAN said that each spring the blooming lilac would remind him not only of the death of LINCOLN, but also of the eternal return to life. He felt that poets eventually would lead men's souls back to God. WHITMAN worked as a printer and journalist in the NYC area. He wrote articles on political questions, civic affairs, and the arts. He loved mixing in crowds and attended debates, the theater, concerts, lectures, and political meetings. He often rode on stagecoaches and ferries just to talk with the drivers, boatmen, and passengers. He enjoyed a picnic as much as an opera. During the Civil War, WHITMAN was a volunteer assistant in the military hospitals in Washington, D. C. After the war he worked in several governmental departments until he suffered a stroke in 1873. He spent the rest of his life in Camden, NJ, where he continued to write poems and articles. He entertained such visitors as Oscar WILDE and Thomas EAKINS, until his death in 1892. UNSEEN BUDS Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well, Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch, Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn, Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping; Billions of billions, and trillions of trillons of them waiting, Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless, And waiting ever more, forever more behind. MIRACLES Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring! These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every foot of the interior swarms with the same. To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim -- the rocks -- the motion of the waves -- the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there? SPARKLES FROM THE WHEEL Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day, Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them. By the curb towards the edge of the flagging, A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife, Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee, With measur'd tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but firm hand, Forth issue then in copious golden jets. Sparkles from the wheel. The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me, The sad sharp-chinn'd old man with worn clothes and broad shoulder-band of leather, Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here absorb'd and arrested, The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding.) The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets, The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade, Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold. Sparkles from the wheel.