One week after the launch of The Fall of the Fitzmaurices, I have got around to give my readers some details of the book that I started researching five years ago. This research took me from Kerry (Lixnaw and Kenmare) to Dublin, London and Paris, not to mention calling on a number of other Kerry […]
The Kerry Girls – Earl Grey Famine Schem
I was delighted to see the well-researched article in last Saturday’s Irish Independent (18th October 2020) on The Irish orphan girls who shaped Australia’s character. In the article, Clodagh Finn, the author has summarised the story of one of the Listowel Workhouse girls – Bridget Ryan, who wasn’t in fact an ‘orphan’ but had an […]
Born in Kerry?
If your ancestors were born in Kerry, where were they born? And I don’t mean, what location? I mean do you know exactly where they were born? At home, a hospital, a private nursing home or …? Well the answer is that it depends on when they were born. What era? From the earliest […]
Kenmare, Co. Kerry 1837
An excerpt from Samuel Lewis Kenmare – A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837: Kenmare, a post-town and parish, in the barony of GLANEROUGH, county of KERRY, and province of MUNSTER, 30 1/2 [?] miles (S.) from Tralee, and 160 miles (S.W.)from Dublin, on the new road from Killarney t.o Glengariff; containing 4957 inhabitants, of which number, […]
Dingle, Co. Kerry 1837
An excerpt from Samuel Lewis Dingle – A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837: Dingle is the most westerly town in Ireland; it is situated in lat. 52o 10‘ 30″ and lon. 10o 15′ 45″, on the northern coast of the bay of the same name, an inlet from which forms the harbour; and may be […]
Lord Dunraven, Garnish & Sneem
I got a number of interesting comments on my last blog on Sneem. One, in particular, was most interesting. -It was an explanatory piece from Bob Frewen that he had contributed to a Sneem book titled: ‘Bridging Memories’. that was published at Christmas 2010 , one of over a dozen chapters Bob had contributed. I […]
Tralee Traders in 1856
I have been been reading through that interesting History of Kerry by M.F. Cusack, published ‘by subscription’ in 1871. While it is very descriptive and gives great insight to some of our more historic times, Mary Frances comes over as autocratic and someone not to be trifled with. She explains in her Preface that ‘the […]