In the past week of a hurricane, rain, storm and floods in Kerry, I was fascinated to discover not much of a change to what was happening in 1733. It is an account I transcribed from the Ipswich Journal of 31 March 1733. The background story is that John Fitzmaurice, second son of Thomas 1st Earl […]
While this post is headed ‘Griffiths Valuation in Kerry’ the explantions provided here for the Pierce tenanted land, are applicable to any other Griffith’s record, in any part of Ireland. I am posting this Kerry Griffith’s Valuation explanation in reply to questions that I am often asked – to explain the different letters and figures […]
Boards of Guardians were empowered under an Act of Parliament 1849/1850 to apply part of the Rates and to borrow money ‘for the purpose of defraying or assisting to defray the expenses of the migration of poor persons’. Power was given by The (British) Treasury to borrow from public funds and authorise the Commissioners of Public […]
The enumeration of emigrants from Irish Ports did not start until 1st May 1851. From that time onward to 1906, we have a list of the numbers leaving the country, unfortunately neither their names, the ports they left from nor their destinations have been included. The figures below show that 113,237 males and 113,827 females, […]
One of the most infamous evictions to take place in Kerry was that from Glenbeigh in January 1887. One of my readers – John O’Connor has alerted me to the published sources which give us a rounded view of what took place in that part of the county. John’s own Great GrandUncle is the […]
Evictions occurred in Ireland when tenants could not pay the rent? While this might be the simplistic view it is not the full story. Inability to pay the rent was usually the reason, but there were also a number of other explanations. Unreasonable and unjust rent increases or landlords consolidating land from smallholdings that had […]
I get a large number of queries and consultations on Sullivan/O’Sullivan families both in Kerry and in the Kerry Catholic Diocese of the Beara Peninsula, so I thought they needed a blog of their own. For the very few of you who don’t know the importance of the O’Sullivans to this part of Ireland, I […]
Landed Estates Court Rentals 1850-1885 on FindMyPast.ie are records that I have found very useful. If your ancestor leased or rented land from any of the Landlords who had financial problems in the late 1860s – after the Famine, this land may have gone into the ‘Encumbered Estates’ and in the sales pitch to sell off […]
Marie Oxx, a reader of my blog Quakers during the Great Famine in Kerry – reminded me also of the Prendergast letters, for another contemporary insight into the Famine in Kerry and the area around Milltown, The original letters The Prendergast Letters: Correspondence from Famine-Era Ireland, 1840-1850, edited by Shelley Barber (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006) […]
I think it might be better to keep my opinion of Donald Trump to myself but I have to say that he seems to have awoken something in the Irish diaspora in the United States when he targeted ’emigrants’/ ‘immigrants’ . These words seem to have resonated with Irish descendants who had long ago half forgotten […]
Kay Caball is a qualified Genealogist certified by the University of Limerick. A native of Kerry, Kay specialises in Kerry based local family history and genealogy. She studied History of the Family & Genealogical Methods at the University of Limerick with her research conducted in primary and secondary sources for the County of Kerry.
Kay is also a member of the Eneclann & Ancestor Network panel of genealogy advisers at the National Library of Ireland.
