Hi Marie, What surname, what denomination (Church of Ireland, perhaps?) what location - Tipperary town or Co. Tipperary in general. Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 12:34 PM Subject: [IGW] Tipperary,Ireland > Can someone tell me about this part of Ireland? My great great great > grandfather came to America from there during the mid to late 1850's. > Did they keep census,marriage,death records at that time? > Any help appreciated. > > Marie

SNIPPET: The Brule tribe was a branch of the Sioux Nation, a group that lived in SD and who, before the arrival of European settlers, led a peaceful existence. Regrettably, however, relations between the Brules and their new neighbors became strained and marked by frequent skirmishes. In 1855, in response to a Brule robbery that ended in the deaths of three white men, General William HARNEY, known to the Native Americans as "White Whiskers Harney," led a punitive expedition against the tribe, killing 85 Brules and taking many more captive. The Brule men pressed for peace, and a conference was arranged for the two sides to air their grievances. Among those present at the talks, though not a part of the negotiating team, was an Irish-born priest, Fr. Joseph TRECY. While the conference was in progress, Fr. TRECY heard a voice call out from the Brule ranks - "Brathair, an bhfuil Gaeilge agat?" TRECY,who had left Ireland in 1835 at the age of 11, recalled enough Irish to translate the plaintive cry as "Brother, can you speak Irish?" Looking into the Brule delegation, which was decked out in full warpaint and clothed in deerskins, he thought better of the notion until the call was repeated. This time he answered in surprise, "Ta, cuid de" - "Yes, a little." At that moment a Brule Indian chief stepped out from the ranks and shook the priest's hand. The Irish-speaking Brule chief, he soon learned, was actually a Tipperaryman who, along with a companion, was wanted in the 1838 killing of an Irish landlord in Tipperary. The two men had escaped to NY, but were trailed by the authorities all the way to MO. In a last-ditch effort to elude captors, they befriended the Brules, learned their language, and before long became chiefs and took wives from among the tribe. Despite feeling welcome in their adopted community, the Irishmen apparently yearned for spiritual nourishment. The meeting with Fr. TRECY allowed them to catch up on their sacraments, and before long the priest had baptized and married 40 Indian families as well. After his departure from the tribe, Fr. TRECY went on to continue his ministry, eventually becoming a chaplain during the American Civil War. He staunchly refused, however, to disclose the identities of the men from Tipperary or the name of the men they had killed. Thanks to the Brule's hospitality and Fr. TRECY's discretion, the Tipperymen were able to escape prosecution, eventually leaving the tribe and along with their wives and children, continue on with their lives in America. The mystery of their identities and the details of their crimes were never resolved. Yet, by the process of elimination, the case comes nearer to closure. There are three recorded cases of killings of landlords in Co. Tipperary in 1838. In two instances men were tried and hanged for the crimes, although a persistent rumor, never proved, suggested that others might have escaped. In the third case, the shooting of Charles O'KEEFE in Thurles, after two early suspects were able to demonstrate their innocence, no additional suspects were ever charged. It is quite possible that the "Sioux chiefs" from Tipperary were the same men who shot Charles O'KEEFE on October 27 1838. Unlike the story of Fr. TRECY, the fate of the Brule, Teton and Yankton tribes of the Sioux Nation is not a happy one. In treaty after broken treaty, they lost their lands and hunting grounds. -- Excerpt, "The World of Hibernia" magazine.

SNIPPET: Patrick Augustine FEEHAN 1829-1902). The first Catholic archbishop of Chicago was born in Killenaule, Co. Tipperary. While he was training for the priesthood, his parents left famine-plagued Ireland for America. The young seminarian eagerly seized an opportunity to join them there and completed preparation for his 1852 ordination. As a curate in three St. Louis churches during the next few years, Father FEEHAN earned the title "priest of the poor" for his good works among those in need. During the Civil War, he tirelessly sought to comfort the wounded of all religions, and as Bishop of Nashville, TN, in the post-war years, he reconstructed the war-torn diocese by rebuilding churches and establishing schools, a convent, and an orphanage for the children of soldiers who had died in the war. In 1880, FEEHAN was elevated to archbishop of the newly-created Chicago archdiocese, which thrived during his 22-year administration.

SNIPPET: New Tipperary, was a development in the 'Plan of Campaign' (see below) initiated by William O'BRIEN. In response to the action of the largest landlord of Tipperary town, A. H. SMITH-BARRY, who pursued wholesale evictions against tenants withholding rents, nationalists resorted to the extreme measure of building a substitute 'town' nearby. Opened with great fanfare on 12 April 1890, New Tipperary was a disastrously expensive venture, greatly depleting Plan funds and undermining the whole strategy. 'The 'Plan of Campaign' was a Nationalist response to the problems of agricultural depression, tenant distress and evictions that continued despite the Land Act of 1881. (Land Acts were to be passed over a period of more than half a century transforming landholding from a system of territorial landlordism to one of owner occupancy). Initiated by William O'BRIEN and other leading Parnellities (though not PARNELL) the plan was published in 'United Ireland' in October 1886 and proposed that where a landlord refused rent reductions tenants would offer rents they considered to be fair. On these being refused the sums involved would go into an 'estate fund.' for the support of tenants who could then expect to be evicted, with further financial support coming, as needed from the National League. Operating chiefly in the south and west of Ireland during 1886-90, the plan met with well-organized landlord and government opposition. It heavily depleted Nationalist funds and was less than wholly successful. Disputes on 84 of 116 estates involved were resolved by agreement, some after conflicts; 15 were settled on the landlord's terms while 18 were still unresolved in 1891 The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 (GLADSTONE's first land act) had given the force of law to customary tenant right where it existed and created similar rights elsewhere in the country, provided for compensation for disturbance of tenants evicted other than for non-payment of rent, and made provision for compensation for improvements in the case of a departing tenant. Its so-called 'Bright clauses' allowed tenants to purchase their holdings. The Land Law (Ireland) Act of 1881 (Gladstone's second land act) granted the "three Fs" and instituted the Land Commission, with authority to adjudicate on fair rents and to make loans of up to 75% of the purchase price to tenants purchasing their holdings. (The "three Fs," the alliterative label widely used in post-Famine Ireland to describe long-standing, but in reality ambiguous, tenant demands for fair rents, fixity of tenure, and free sale, another name for tenant right). Free sale, together with fixity of tenure, was a particular demand of larger tenant farmers. Fair rents were of more importance for poorer tenants. All three rights were given legal status throughout Ireland under GLADSTONE's second Land Act of 1881. The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act 1885 (the Ashbourne Act) increased the loan limit to 100%. William Ewart GLADSTONE, British prime minister and Liberal Party leader, was the son of a Liverpool merchant, educated at Eton and Oxford. He first entered parliament as Conservative MP for Oxford 1832. He was to resign as president of the Board of Trade due to differences. As prime minister (1868-74) he carried through the disestablishment of the Anglican church 1869, and enacted the symbolically important Land Act of 1870. His Land Act of 1881 effectively ended the Land War, while his Kilmainham treaty signified his acceptance of Charles Stewart PARNELL (born into a Protestant landlord family in Avondale, Co. Wicklow) as a nationalist leader with whom a settlement of the Irish question might be made. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to effect this with the home rule bill of 1886. GLADSTONE's conversion to home rule split the Liberal Party. His second attempt to enact home rule, in 1893, also failed. In March 1894 he resigned as a prime minister. A complex personality, GLADSTONE's commitment to Ireland was based on a variety of motives -- a profound moral sense, an acceptance, born of the Fenian rising of 1867, that Ireland was a separate nationality requiring distinctive treatment, and, relatedly, the realization that constitutional reorganization was necessary if the essential integrity of the United Kingdom and its interests were to be safeguarded. .

When did the Irish begin to keep census records? Marie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean R." <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 1:27 PM Subject: [IGW] Edward A. WILSON - English Antarctic scientist, explorer,fine artist - Visitor, Dingle Peninsula, Co. Kerry 1905 > SNIPPET: The July-August 2005 issue of Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine has a very interesting, several-page illustrated article entitled, "Those Kerry Landscapes." The original paintings were done during a 1905 family holiday in the West of Ireland by the late Edward A. WILSON, English scientist, explorer, lecturer and artist. Additionally, there are some of WILSON's charming sketches of British birds and mammals and three old family photographs. The author is Christopher J. WILSON, who lives in Co. Wexford. His Great Uncle, "Uncle Ted," late husband of Oriana (Souper) WILSON, is better known as Edward WILSON of the Antarctic. It is noted that in August of 2005, one hundred years after the Kerry landscapes were painted, eleven stunning watercolours were presented to the Kerry County Museum, Tralee. Back issues of "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazines can be requested at the magazine's website > > A true nature lover, Edward A. WILSON wrote: "... Things of beauty give me the most intense pleasure, which lasts a long time and can be recalled at will for days, months, sometimes years. There is something in it we don't in the least understand." > > "I can't explain to anyone how one so can get to love a bird as to kiss every egg in its nest and to pray for them. The many little loves and pathos and small tragedies (of birds and animals) I have felt deeply and always when quite alone out in the country. I often wonder if they are all lost and gone. They were and are so much to me, and nothing to anyone else. I might try my best to get anyone else to feel what I do over them, but I never could." > > "... How hard it is to live and how hard it is to die. Isn't it a puzzle? And yet what a fund of joy there is in life all the same ... I sometimes think that Time is the only thing that prevents this life from being absolute heaven." > > WILSON was to perish with Captain Robert Falcon SCOTT (RN) eleven miles from safety, during their 1910-1912 Terra Nova Antarctic expedition. > > Christopher J. WILSON is a keen naturalist and ecologist, and Warden of the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve, a regular broadcaster on national radio and television, with publications to include "High Skies - Low Lands: an anthology of the Wexford Slobs and Harbour" jointly edited with David Rowe (1996) and "Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks" (with Christopher's brother, Dr. David Wilson. The latter, "Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks,' (2004), D. M. WILSON & C. J. WILSON (ISBN 1-873877-70-6), Reardon Publishing, is available at good bookshops and at Wexford Wildfowl Reserve, Co. Wexford; BirdWatch Ireland, Newcastle, Co. Wicklow; The South Pole Inn and the Anchor Guest House, Annascaul, Co. Kerry; Reardon Publishing, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, and on line at www.edwardawilson.com; www.naturalrapture.ie; www.tomcrean.com; www.amazon.co.uk. All Royalties are being donated to Edward Wilson Memorial projects, per CJW. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

To Aid In Your Research http://www.familysearch.org/ www.cyndislist.com/ Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. The National Archives of Ireland website has much to offer researchers who visit their facility in Dublin. Resources include various National School Roll Books/Registers received via the Department of Education for Cos. Cavan, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. School records received via private donation include Cos. Cavan, Carlow, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. I found that the easiest way for me to locate their school records page was to simply do a "Google" website search for National School Records. (I had problems locating it using their website index, but you may not.) While I don't believe the personnel at the Archives do research for the general public, they do take queries, have tips on using their facility and apparently have a list of genealogists who do research on some materials for a fee. Volunteer Look-Ups: "Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness" (RAOGK) website, look-ups for little or nothing. For Griffith's Valuation http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths.php Currently 2,793,233 records from Counties Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Limerick, Mayo, Sligo, Tyrone & Wexford. Types of record include Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Griffith's Valuation, Tithe Applotments' and 1901 Census returns. History behind surnames and where found in Ireland in the mid-19th century. . http://scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm Record Search: https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/csi/csi_main.cfm#Counties Currently 2,793,233 records from Counties Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Limerick, Mayo, Sligo, Tyrone & Wexford. Types of record include Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Griffith's Valuation, Tithe Applotments' and 1901 Census returns. Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. The database has valuable info. on those who perished in WW-I and WW-II while serving in the British Commonwealth. NOTE: The WW-I data often gives NAMES/ADDRESSES of NEXT OF KIN. Leitrim-Roscommon website: "Google" phrase Leitrim-Roscommon. Excellent site for those counties plus census data on OTHER Irish counties (i.e. Sligo, Mayo, etc.). Also has an ALL-IRELAND townland search engine. The 1901 Census gives place of birth of each person in household; you may discover that your Cavan-born (other) ancestor was living in Leitrim or in the military there at the time of the 1901 Census. Conduct a name search. (There is a link with searchable Matheson survey of surnames based on Irish births in 1890 at an Ulster website; they may still offer the data free, check and see, pertained to surnames in ALL Irish counties, last time I looked). Microfilmed Irish Pension Records are being transcribed (ongoing project) with searchable database by surname at www.pensear.org. Records (mainly) for No. Ireland transcribed thus far. See website for more details. Many of the women's records give both married and maiden (nee) surnames. Valuation Office Records The Valuation Office, set up to carry out the original Primary Valuation, is still in existence, and has two related sets of records which are potentially valuable. The first of these are the notebooks used by the original Valuation surveyors, consisting of field books, house books and tenure books. All three record a map reference for the holdings they deal with, as in the published Valuation. The field books then record information on the size and quality of the holding, the house books record the occupiers' names and the measurements of any buildings on their holdings, and the tenure books give the annual rent paid and the legal basis on which the holding is occupied, whether by lease or at will. The tenure books also give the year of any lease, useful to know before searching estate papers or The Registry of Deeds. As well as containing information such as this, which does not appear in the published Valuation, the valuers' notebooks can also be useful in documenting any changes in occupation between the initial survey and the published results, for instance if a family emigrated in the years immediately before publication, since they pre-date the final publication itself by several years. Unfortunately, they are not extant for all areas. The National Archives now houses those which survive for the Republic of Ireland. Those covering Northern Ireland are now to be found in The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland . The Valuation Office itself, at the Irish Life Centre, Abbey Street Lower, Dublin 1, contains the second set of useful records. These are the Cancelled Land Books and Current Land Books, giving details of all changes in the holdings, from the time of the Primary Valuation up to the present day. Any variations in the size or status of the holding, the names of the occupier or lessor, or the valuation itself are given in the revisions carried out every few years. The Books can be very useful in pinpointing a possible date of death or emigration, or in identifying a living relative. A large majority of those who were in occupation of a holding by the 1890s, when the Land Acts began to subsidise the purchase of the land by its tenant farmers, have descendants or relatives still living in the same area. The Cancelled Land Books for Northern Ireland are now in The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Griffith's Primary Valuation is keyed to a set of maps, now computerized at the Valuation Office [Irish Life Centre, Abbey Street Lower, Dublin 1, http://www.valoff.ie ], showing the location of each holding of property. You can use Griffith's Primary Valuation and the accompanying maps to discover the exact location of the property where your ancestors lived in the mid-nineteenth century. Griffith's Primary Valuation is available online at the web sites of Irish Origins http://www.irishorigins.com and Otherdays.com http://www.otherdays.com . The Irish Origins web site also has the Griffith's Primary Valuation maps.

SNIPPET: September 1930. Age 16, my mother, Kathleen SLOYAN, the second of eight children, leaves her home in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo. She will marry, raise three children and die in Brooklyn, NY, at age 53, without ever returning home. We have no photos of her as a child. With my first wage as a paper boy, I bought her a 78 rpm record that had "Mayo" in the title. Her hug was a full world. Her eyes filled, and for years I bought her anything that had Mayo in the title. I still love the sound of the word Mayo. March 1924. Age 20, my father, Patrick Joseph MURPHY, the fifth of 13 children, leaves his home in Cloone, Co. Leitrim. He will return years later, a year after the death of my mother, many years after the deaths of his own mother and father. We have no photos of him as a child. This is the story of his journey home. I went with him and met myself. In the Brooklyn world of my childhood, Ireland was always there on my mental horizon in the rhythms of speech and turns of phrase of Irish people about the house; in the ballads about the old country and a moonlight in Mayo that could bring my mother to tears; in the Friday night card games in which a priest visiting from Ireland might occasionally loosen his collar and mutter a sort of curse when the Lord failed to fill his inside straight. Our was a world of aunts, uncles, cousins; the calendar had its comforting rhythm of gatherings for holidays, baptisms, communions, graduations. And, the funerals. Always uncles - John, Michael, Frank - each death strange in its own way, each one driving my father deeper into himself. I was eight when Uncle John fell over the banister on his way up to his apartment, dropped three stories, and broke his neck. I didn't really know him, but I can still see him falling. Then, I was nine when Uncle Michael fell under the wheels of the IRT subway, the family said it was the heart that gave way, dead before he hit the tracks; others whispered that he had jumped. My dad said his brothers had bad luck... Then my godfather, Uncle Frank, the bachelor, a large man with gruff manners whose hand swallowed mine when he shook it, his breath spoke of cigarettes, whiskey, and anger. I felt bonded to him as my godfather and a bit afraid of him at the same time. He drank himself to death!. I was 13 when he died, my father was 50 and was burying his third brother in America. Years later, I would begin to understand his loss and the pain that he kept inside as the funerals kept coming. But then, I was young and my father's losses were distant. I went to my uncles' wakes and funerals and then came home, tired after a day of play with all the cousins. In Aughakiltrubred, parish of Cloone, Co. Leitrim, what could my grandparents, John MURPHY and Bridget MAGUIRE, possibly have thought when formal studio wedding pictures from the USA had arrived in the mail - the grooms looking awkward in their rented tuxedos. Immigrants to a new world, just starting out, so far from their homes. I now realize that it was sending word home that all was well, that they were prospering in the new world. The photos sent home say, "Not to worry, all's well." Grooms dressed in tuxedos for marriage, a formal occasion at which parents should be honoured and basking in the glow of the moment, but there are no parents in these wedding photos. These parents are an ocean away and will not be seen again by their children, and will know many of their grandchildren only in the stream of photographs that will try to shrink the distance. The distance between these two worlds of our family came to me one day when I came home from school and my Dad was there, home earlier from work than normal -- News from Ireland, my grandmother had died. Naive, I don't think I had ever thought of my parents as having parents. I really couldn't grasp the whole idea of it - father had a mother but she lived far away in this mysterious place we talked and sang about, I had a grandmother, she had died, my dad would never see her again. He sits there, silence fills the room, and I try to understand this mystery. My Dad was a warm, loving man, full of sharp humour, always humming tunes he composed as he went along, but at the same time he was a man of few words, at least in terms of his personal feelings and experiences. I suspect that is, at least in part, an Irish trait, especially on the male side of the fence, but in planning a trip home energized him in a special way. He began to speak more about Ireland as the trip approached, he had lots of questions. He wanted to look good, so off we went to Sears and Roebuck on Bedford Avenue, our idea of high fashion. He was clearly nervous about the whole thing. Ours was to be a five-week trip, visiting Ireland and England. In each place, he had both of his own and my mother's family to visit. Only as we talked on the plane did I realize that much of his nervousness came from worry that he might not like all these people. There he would be five long weeks, "at home," but in a world of strangers. What would he have to say to his brother, Eddie, and to his sister, Ellen? After all, they wouldn't be interested in baseball, one of his passions, that was a sure indicator he had become a Yank. After a few days visiting with my mother's brothers and sisters in Mayo, it was off to Leitrim, the real goal of the whole trip. As we neared his home turf, he began to recognize landmarks, houses, churches. No, we didn't need the maps I had been studying so carefully since Shannon Airport. He became the guide. We were closing distances - "Turn here, make the next right. If you turn here, you'll see REYNOLDS' place. The next house should be John LEE's..." Much had surely changed in more than 40 years, but he knew this place; its houses and turns of the road had histories that he was remembering, this world of rough, marginal farmland, clearly not prosperous, was the place of their beginnings of all the MURPHY boys and girls who wound up in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Canada, Rhode Island, California, England, in jobs and worlds far removed from their parents who had worked the stubborn Leitrim land to feed them. He said there would be a place a bit up the road where we could buy some beer and stout to take up with us. Partly, he was testing his memory; partly, he was stalling. There was indeed a place that was not really a pub in today's terms; rather, it was a sort of general store that also served as the post office and pub, BRADY's. He had gotten the place right in his memory; he had found it after all those years, but will this place know him? One of the men looks up and says, "Is it Packy MURPHY?" There he is, Patrick Joseph MURPHY, looking all too American in his Sears and Roebuck best, but he is surely close to home. "John Francis?" Obviously, Daddy had recognized John Francis MULVEY, or at least suspected that he did. No dramatic hugs, a quiet handshake, and MULVEY, "We knew you were coming home. Eddie's expecting you." Perhaps this moment is more in my own memory than in reality. Nonetheless, I remember it as a great release for Daddy. If he was OK with John Francis MULVEY, surely he would be OK with his brother and sister. Great distance were closed in that meeting of two brothers who hadn't seen each other in over 40 years. Their greeting itself was not dramatic in any gesture or outward emotional demonstration. Brothers in more than looks, they deflected emotions, keeping their inner worlds to themselves. For all anyone could tell, they might have seen each other last week. A handshake, no hugs. "You're welcome home, sit by the fire." Whiskey all around, the only public acknowledgement of a special occasion. Aunt Maggie gave us a bit of tea. Daddy gradually settled into a rhythm of memory and laughter as old friends came by and nostalgia filled this small, warm, secure place. He was home, a circle had been closed. He had lived his life far removed from this starting place, and now he was back 40 years later. Hearing the laughter about some forgotten wildness when they were all young bucks, watching him walk the fields with his brother, seeing the easy way he had with cattle, I realised that I had always known instinctively about this other world. Without my realising it, Ireland had been one of my parents' gifts to me; perhaps without their even intending it as a gift, but here it was -- a whitewashed cottage in Leitrim, no running water, three rooms, a central fire -- in this place, my Dad and the aunts and uncles of my growing up were all born. All along that trip, I had thought I was taking my Dad home. Now, I know he was showing me my own starting place. He had taken me home. -- Excerpts, Jim MURPHY -- Yearly "Leitrim Guardian" 2001

SNIPPET: The July-August 2005 issue of Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine has a very interesting, several-page illustrated article entitled, "Those Kerry Landscapes." The original paintings were done during a 1905 family holiday in the West of Ireland by the late Edward A. WILSON, English scientist, explorer, lecturer and artist. Additionally, there are some of WILSON's charming sketches of British birds and mammals and three old family photographs. The author is Christopher J. WILSON, who lives in Co. Wexford. His Great Uncle, "Uncle Ted," late husband of Oriana (Souper) WILSON, is better known as Edward WILSON of the Antarctic. It is noted that in August of 2005, one hundred years after the Kerry landscapes were painted, eleven stunning watercolours were presented to the Kerry County Museum, Tralee. Back issues of "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazines can be requested at the magazine's website A true nature lover, Edward A. WILSON wrote: "... Things of beauty give me the most intense pleasure, which lasts a long time and can be recalled at will for days, months, sometimes years. There is something in it we don't in the least understand." "I can't explain to anyone how one so can get to love a bird as to kiss every egg in its nest and to pray for them. The many little loves and pathos and small tragedies (of birds and animals) I have felt deeply and always when quite alone out in the country. I often wonder if they are all lost and gone. They were and are so much to me, and nothing to anyone else. I might try my best to get anyone else to feel what I do over them, but I never could." "... How hard it is to live and how hard it is to die. Isn't it a puzzle? And yet what a fund of joy there is in life all the same ... I sometimes think that Time is the only thing that prevents this life from being absolute heaven." WILSON was to perish with Captain Robert Falcon SCOTT (RN) eleven miles from safety, during their 1910-1912 Terra Nova Antarctic expedition. Christopher J. WILSON is a keen naturalist and ecologist, and Warden of the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve, a regular broadcaster on national radio and television, with publications to include "High Skies - Low Lands: an anthology of the Wexford Slobs and Harbour" jointly edited with David Rowe (1996) and "Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks" (with Christopher's brother, Dr. David Wilson. The latter, "Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks,' (2004), D. M. WILSON & C. J. WILSON (ISBN 1-873877-70-6), Reardon Publishing, is available at good bookshops and at Wexford Wildfowl Reserve, Co. Wexford; BirdWatch Ireland, Newcastle, Co. Wicklow; The South Pole Inn and the Anchor Guest House, Annascaul, Co. Kerry; Reardon Publishing, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, and on line at www.edwardawilson.com; www.naturalrapture.ie; www.tomcrean.com; www.amazon.co.uk. All Royalties are being donated to Edward Wilson Memorial projects, per CJW.

I was just about to send from England for a marriage certificate from the GRO at Roscommon when I was told by someone that it had taken six months for him to receive his certificate. Is this still true? If so has anyone any idea as to how I could get a certificate faster? Would it be better to apply to the county registration office?

AT STROKESTOWN HOUSE After driving in the dark through an arch of tall trees, we parked in the half moon space shaped by this big house, and smelled the mulled wine as it wafted out the door. On either side of the hallway, in two large rooms, people admired the red fires glowing in the old grates, the walls lined with pieces of Delft, candlesticks, ornaments, paintings. Then I remembered why these artefacts were here, how tenants were punished if they did not pay their rent. A shipload drowned at sea, after fleeing from the famine years. In the library, I listened to thirty two voices from Longford and Mullingar, singing carols and bringing the Christmas story to life. Later, in the kitchen we drank steaming wine and mince pies. Leaving the large rooms behind, in the winding corridor I noticed how the stones were placed to make such grand designs. How men must have slaved to create all this. -- Mary Guckian, born 1942 in Kiltoghert, Co. Leitrim. Her books include "Perfume of the Soil" and "The Road to Gowel," Swan Press, Dublin. Mary enjoys photography and produced a series of postcards during the 1980s that sold around Ireland, and her work has been exhibited.

MY FIRST CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN I see the countless Christmas trees around the world below With tiny lights, like heaven's stars, reflecting on the snow. The sight is so spectacular, please wipe away that tear, For I am spending Christmas with Jesus Christ this year. I hear the many Christmas songs that people hold so dear, But the sounds of music can't compare with the Christmas choir up here. I have no words to tell you the joy their voices bring, For it is beyond description to hear the angels sing. I know how much you miss me, I see the pain inside your heart, But I am not so far away. We really aren't apart. So be happy for me, dear ones. You know I hold you dear, And be glad I'm spending Christmas with Jesus Christ this year. I send you each a special gift from my heavenly home above. I send you each a memory of my undying love. After all, "Love" is the gift, more precious than pure gold. It was always most important in the stories Jesus told. Please love and keep each other, as our Father said to do, For I can't count the blessings or love He has for you. So, have a Merry Christmas and wipe away the tear. Remember, I'm spending Christmas with Jesus Christ this year. Author Unknown

LADY SELECTING HER CHRISTMAS CARDS Fastidiously, with gloved and careful fingers, Through the marked samples she pursues her search. Which shall it be: the snowscape's wintry languors Complete with church. An urban skyline, children sweetly pretty Sledding downhill, the chaste ubiquitous wreath, Schooner or candle or simple Scottie With verse underneath? Perhaps it might be better to emblazon With words alone the stiff, punctilious square. (Oh, not Victorian certainly. This season One meets it everywhere.) She has a duty proper to the weather -- A Birth she must announce, a rumor to spread Wherefore the very spheres once sang together And a star shone overhead. Here are the tidings which the shepherds panted One to another, kneeling by their flocks. And they will bear her name (engraved, not printed), Twelve-fifty for the box. -- Phyllis McGinley was born in 1905 in Ontario, OR, lived in CO, UT, CA and NY, married Charles Hayden. She was an author, poetess, teacher and editor and won a Pulitzer for Light Verse. Her poetry reflects everyday life with affection and humour.

SNIPPET: Roy GREENSLADE of England first visited Co. Donegal in 1971 and states he is as captivated today by the austere beauty as when he first visited the county with the beautiful waterfall at Crannogeboy, near Ardara. At that time he strolled across Ballynass Strand in Falcarragh in a skimpy sweater on a sunny, cloudless day with a biting wind blowing off the sea and, taking shelter in the lee of a rocky outcrop with his friend, Noreen, who had been born in Donegal and raised in Glasgow. She had returned to her family home on childhood holidays every summer, suffering a hellish voyage on something called "The Derry Boat," but it had been years since her last visit and she was uncertain of what she would find. A gull wading at the water's edge was startled by some imagined enemy and took off in the direction of an island called Tory, as they luxuriated in a silence broken only by the lapping of waves and an occasional screech of a gull. Earlier, at Strabane, they had boarded a coach to take them into Donegal's heartland. The driver speed lurched from maniacally fast to dead stop, thinking nothing of pulling up for five minutes to chat with a passerby on the roadside or a shopowner in a village, cheerfully blocking the road in both directions. Sometimes he gave, or accepted packages. Often, he just passed the time of day. No one in the bus seemed to mind. The roads were terrible and far too narrow to accommodate a coach. Several times they found themselves behind tractors, once behind a farmer driving his flock of sheep. After they had crawled behind the latter for almost ten minutes, Roy thought the driver would be in a hurry to speed past when the farmer turned into a field. Instead, the driver and the farmer discussed the weather for another five minutes! Having crossed a river they entered another world. The "alien territory" to Roy was one of granite outcrops on heather-clad hillsides, a proliferation of purple rhododendrons, boggy water meadows strewn with rushes, and people living in stone houses with tiny windows. Booking into Falcarragh's only hotel, they downed ham, cucumber slices and a mountain of lettuce - nothing hot was being offered that evening. Next morning they visited an uncle of Noreen's who lived in a tiny whitewashed cottage where her mother had been born. As they entered the sparsely furnished room they noticed an enamel basin of warm milk on the dressers, flies buzzy overhead where the skin was starting to form. "Uncle Charlie" misread Roy's interest; waving the flies aside, he scooped up a cupful and offered it to him. (Noreen's eyes told me it would be bad manners to say "no"). Later the uncle took Roy for an uncomfortable tractor ride with only the odd house in the distance. Roy glimpsed the tragedy of a land whose people where born to live elsewhere, as Noreen discussed the wanderings of a string of relatives - this one in Philadelphia, that one in Scotland, those two in America in a city whose name she couldn't remember, another in London. Roy clutched Noreen to his side as they stood with their backs to the Atlantic to watch darkening clouds gather over Errigal. They lingered only a second, bending their heads against the wind. But that was "The Kiss," the moment when Roy gave in to Donegal's embrace and realized that his life had truly changed - that this was the place for him. Back in Britain days later, he haunted bookshops, reading everything he could about Ireland: history, politics, topography, literature, mythology, poetry -- especially everything about Donegal. He loved the slower pace, the friendlessness and even the "nosiness" of everyone they met, the community spirit of Ireland. He and Noreen and the children would return for countless holidays and Christmases. While he vainly searched for any Irish connections to his surname, he discovered in Olde English it was grene slade, which means dweller in the green valley. Well, he thought, in Donegal, there were green valleys galore! Roy has climbed Errigal, sailed to Tory and drank brandy with the island's king, discovered the beautiful beach of Ballymastocker, drank endless pints of Guinness in a variety of pubs, taken one of the first tours of Glenveigh Castle. He and his family gradually got to know scores of people, beginning with Noreen's relatives and friends from her childhood who had taken the dramatic, and then unfashionable, step of leaving Glasgow to return to their roots. After a decade as a resident now, their love for Donegal had only deepened while the people of Donegal are experiencing the chance to discover for themselves the pleasures (and the perils) of progress. Letterkenny has become a boom town. Donegal clings hopefully to the tail of the Celtic Tiger. He says he is relaxed, knowing that Donegal has withstood hurricanes down the centuries, bending to the wind but never breaking. -- Excerpts, "The World of Hibernia" magazine, Spring 2000.

IN SNOW O English mother, in the ruddy glow Hugging your baby closer when outside You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow Falling again, and think what ills betide Unshelter'd creatures, your sad thoughts may go Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves, Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below. -- William ALLINGHAM. Born in the Mall at Ballyshannon (Donegal) where his father was a ship-owner and merchant. He was educated in Wray's School, Church Lane, Ballyshannon before going to boarding school in Killeshandra, County Cavan in 1837. Allingham left school at fourteen and began working in the local bank in Ballyshannon where his father was then manager. He later became a customs officer in which capacity he worked in various locations in Ireland and in England between 1846 and 1870 when he left the Customs service to write full-time. In 1850 his first volume *Poems* was published. Allingham published *Day and Night Songs.* He published *The Ballad Book* and an epic poem about landlords and tenants entitled *Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland* after which he was granted a Civil List pension. Allingham was editor of the influential *Frazer's Magazine* between 1874-1879. In 1888 he published *Flower Pieces and Other Poems*. Allingham died in London in 1889. His ashes were returned to Ballyshannon where they rest in the Church of Ireland cemetery.

SNIPPET: "Frank McCOURT's life and his searing telling of it, reveals all we need to know about being human," wrote the 'Detroit Free Press when his award-winning memoir, 'Angela's Ashes' was published in 1996. Frank taught English for many years at Stuyvesant High School in NYC after he returned to the States from Ireland as a young man. Here are some excerpts: "My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret dead and gone." In the lanes of Limerick the family tried to survive on what amounted to fried bread and tea. Father had problems finding and then keeping a job. "The lice are disgusting, worse than rats. They're in our heads and ears and they sit in the hollows of our collarbones. They dig into our skin. They get into the seams of our clothes and they're everywhere in the coats we use as blankets. We have to search every inch of Alphie's body because he's a baby and helpless. The lice are worse than fleas ..... The shirt I wore to bed is the shirt I wear to school. I wear it day in day out. It's the shirt for football, for climbing walls, for robbing orchards I go to Mass and the Confraternity in that shirt and people sniff the air and move away. If Mam gets a docket for a new one at the St. Vincent de Paul the old shirt is promoted to towel and hangs damp on the chair for months or Mam might use bits of it to patch other shirts. She might even cut it up and let Alphie wear it a while before it winds up on the floor pushed against the bottom of the door to block the rain from the lane. ... We go to school through lanes and back streets so that we won't meet the respectable boys who go to the Christian Brothers' School or the rich ones who go to the Jesuit school, Crescent College. The Christian Brothers' boys wear tweed jackets, warm woolen sweaters, shirts, ties and shiny new boots. We know they're the ones who will get jobs in the civil service and help the people who run the world. The Crescent College boys wear blazers and school scarves tossed around their necks and over their shoulders to show they're cock o' the walk. They have long hair which falls across their foreheads and over their eyes so that they can toss their quiffs like Englishmen. We know they're the ones who will go to university, take over the family business, run the government, run the world. We'll be the messenger boys on bicycles who deliver their groceries or we'll go off to England to work on the building sites. Our sisters will mind their children and scrub their floors unless they go off to England, too. We're ashamed of the way we look and if boys from the rich schools pass remarks we'll get into fights and wind up with bloody noses or torn clothes... Grandma's next-door neighbor, Mrs. Purcell, has the only wireless in her lane. The government gave it to her because she's old and blind. I want a radio. My grandmother is old but she's not blind and what's the use of having a grandmother who won't go blind and get a government radio? Sunday nights I sit outside on the pavement under Mrs. Purcell's window listening to plays on the BBC and Radio Eireann, the Irish station You can hear plays by O'Casey, Shaw, Ibsen and Shakespeare himself, the best of all, even if he is English .... And you can hear strange plays about Greeks plucking out their eyes because they married their mothers by mistake. One night I am sitting under Mrs. Purcell's window listening to 'Macbeth.' Her daughter, Kathleen, sticks her head out the door. Come in, Frankie. My mother says you'll catch the consumption sitting on the ground in this weather. Ah no Kathleen. It's all right. No. Come in They give me tea and a grand cut of bread slathered with blackberry jam. Mrs. Purcell says , Do you like the Shakespeare, Frankie? I love the Shakespeare, Mrs. Purcell. Oh, he's music, Frankie, and he has the best stories in the world. I don't know what I'd do with meself of a Sunday night if I didn't have the Shakespeare. When the play finished she lets me fiddle with the knob on the radio and I roam the dial for distant sounds on the shortwave band, strange whispering and hissing, the whoosh of the ocean coming and going and Morse Code dit dit dit dot. I hear mandolins, guitars, Spanish bagpipes, the drums of Africa ... here is the great boom of Big Ben, this is the BBC Overseas Service and here is the news. Mrs. Purcell says, Leave that on, Frankie, so we'll know the state of the world. After the news there is the American Armed Forces Network and it's lovely to hear the American voices easy and cool and here is the music, oh man, the music of Duke Ellington himself telling me take the A train to where Billie Holiday sings only to me, 'I can't give you anything but love, baby. That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby.' Oh, Billie, Billie, I want to be in America with you and all that music, where no one has bad teeth, people leave food on their plates, every family has a lavatory, and everyone lives happily ever after. And Mrs. Purcell's says, Do you know what, Frankie? What, Mrs. Purcell? That Shakespeare is that good he must have been an Irishman."

THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS by Robert HAYDEN Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices? John CLARKE, 54, Chevy Chase, MD, nominated this poem that was included in "Americans' Favorite Poems,' eds. Pinsky & Dietz (Norton 2000), and commented - "I first heard the poem about 20 years ago when I started working at the Library of Congress and Robert Hayden read at a gathering ...The poem really struck me then and has haunted me ever since. It was around the time my son was born, too. But it reminds me of the relationship between my grandfather and my father and also somewhat of the relationship between my father and myself. My grandfather was an Irish immigrant who was a widower at an early age and raised six boys; my father was the oldest. I guess my grandfather, my uncles have told me, had to be particularly hard, even though he was very loving towards my father. My father later became a police lieutenant in New York City and although they're from an Irish-American background and Robert Hayden grew up in an African-American background, at these deep human levels, the particulars don't matter. My father and Robert Hayden were almost exact contemporaries. They were born and died within about a year of each other: 1912 and 1913 and 1980 and 1982." Phyllis BECKER, Kansas City, MO wrote: "Broke my heart and restored it."

Good evening. Asking a lot , but you never know. All I have to go on is that a Michael Canlan and a Bridget Lehahan /Lennon were the parents of Edward Canlan who was born Cardiff 1888 and als Jane Canlan who was born Cardiff 1892. H ave always been told the family came from Ireland. But from where and where did they marry. Any assistance would be very much appreciated. Alun.

I needed this poem (Treasure Trove) -we have 4 feet of snow! Helen

TREASURE TROVE I've got some buried treasures More precious far than gold, No thieves can come and steal them, They're ever-new, yet old. I count my treasures daily As Midas counts his hoard, And soon I will exhibit My extraordinary store. All Winter they've been sleeping Buried deep in darkest soil, Now above the earth they're peeping Rich reward for little toil. They will blossom forth like jewels In their frames of tender green, For my treasures are all masterpieces Fashioned by a Hand unseen. When I see their smiling faces My heart will start to sing, For I know that they'll be saying 'It's Spring, it's Spring, it's Spring.' -- Ena O'ROURKE, "Extended Wings 4," Rathmines Writers (Swan Press/1998).

SERENADES The Irish nightingale Is a sedge-warbler, A little bird with a big voice Kicking up a racket all night. Not what you'd expect >From the musical nation. I haven't even heard one -- Nor an owl, for that matter. My serenades have been The broken voice of a crow In a draught or a dream, The wheeze of bats Or the ack-ack Of the tramp corncrake Lost in a no-man's-land Between combines and chemicals. So fill the bottles, love, Leave them inside their cots, And if they do wake us, well, So would the sedge-warbler. -- Seamus HEANEY, 'Serenades' from "Wintering Out" (1972)