"the future of irish genealogy" (1996-1997)

Irish Roots 1996 Number I

Tne Furune or

lTlhe amateur familv hrs-

I tory enthusiasr liiing inI lreland: he/she shorrl,-l

be the major, if not the exclu-sive, focus of the genealogicalestablishment in this countrr.My ideal for genealogf in Ire-land, therefore, is the avail-ability of facilities that r\-ouldbenefit such people. Thesewould include: a national net-work of local family historysocieties; a federatibn of suchsocieties promoting geneal-ogy ab.t national ler.el, a spe-cialisL library, and regular,high quality publications ongenealogy.

To what e\tent does the Dre-sent genealogical establi;hment in keland approximateto this ideal? I wrll do a ouickrevier,r of the main elemdntsof that establishment whichare as follows: the IdshCenealogical Research Soci-ety (ICRS), the Irish FamilvHistory Society, the local ioci-eties, and the Council of lrishGenealogical Organisations.

IGRSThe IGRS was formed inSeptember 193b. Th-is year, itwul De srxty years otd. iheobiects of the society wereand still are (a) to promoteand encourage the study ofIrish genealogy; (b) to c;llectmanuscripts and books ofgenealogical value; (c) to cardindex the contents of allmanuscripts and copies ofmanuscripbs acquired by thesociety. It would be a fairsumming up to say that theobjectives of the society are topopularise genealogy ind tocollect and make available tothe members and the widerpublic genealogically relevantmateia l.

To what extent has it suc-ceeded in its aims? In mvestimation, not well at ali.The only thing it has doneconsistentlv over the vears ofits existenci is to produce theIt islt Gmtnlogist. People whoare familiar with this publica-iion would agree with twothings about it. Fiist of all, it

is very well produced. Thequality of scholarship evidentin the articles is.onsiqtentlvhigh. Secondly, few if any'ofthe articles are of anv valrrewhatsoever to the arieragefamily history researcher.

Why is this the case? Becausethe society has not changedwith the times. Fr WallateClare n'as one of thefounders. The following is aquotation from his book, ASittrple Guide to lrish Genealogy,

This is the lirst article in an open-endedseries on the luture of genealogy in lreland.The other major contributors for this yearare Dr Patricia Donlon, Director of theNational Library and Chief Herald of lreland;Paul Gony, protessional genealogist andOrganiser of the Third lrish GenealogicalCongress; and Sean Murphy, professionalgenealogist and lecturer in genealogy atUniversity College Dublin. An effort will bemade to facilitate anyone with views toexpress on the subject. The Letters Page isavailable and more space will be providedfor longer contributions. lt is hoped that aconsensus will emerge f rom the diflerentpoints of view expressed and a plan devel-oped for the future of genealogy in lreland.

CoAr oF ARN4s oF THE GENEALoctcAL OFFtcE, DuBLtN

Fr Clare was referring to theRegistry of Deeds: 'Not onlydo the deeds supply informa-tion relating to the wealthylandlords. bu r.rlso concern-ing those in humble circum-stances, such as thedescendants oI Irish gentrywho either took to trade orfarming after the Battle of theBoyne by reason of the forfei-tures and penal laws. Now,if such people are regarded ashumble and barely register asbeing of genealogical interest,

clearly the majodty of Idshpeople have roots unworthyof studv. Two olher Factorsgive the flavour of the IGRS.Rule 6 states: 'Membersunder the age of 21, and allLaw and Medical Students...shall be admitted withoutentrance fee...' the societywas intent on attracting the'right people'. Rule 10 statesthat 'Members shall beelected to Fellowship inrecognition of their Genealog-ical attainments and work onbehalf of the Society.' Suchmembers may then place theletters FIGRS after theirnames as if it were some kindof academic qualification.What has that to do with pop-ularising genealogy? It seemsdesigned to turn the societyinto a clique.

For all its airs, the IGRS seemsto fall down in the area ofpracticality. Theirnewsletter,dated March 1995, in whichthe AGM on the 6 Mav ismentioned as a forthc6mingevent, did not reach membersuntil a couple of weeks afterthe ACM was over.

With regard to its objective ofcollecting books andmanuscripts, it has achievedlittle in sixty 1,eare. Its libraryis situated in London and isopen on Saturday afternoonsfrom 2.00-6.00 only.

The Bdtish equivalent, theSociety of Genealogists, has13,000 members, a specialistbook shop, the biggestgenealogy library in theBritish Isles, with relerencesto over 500 million ancestorsand is open frve days a weekfrom 10.00 am to 6.00 pm orIater. It also has an enviablecollection of material relevantto Idsh researchers.

If we look at membershipover a ten year period, it isclear that the IGRS is a stag-nantorganisation. Membership figures are stuckbetween 680 and 750. What ismore interesting is to look at

GeUEALOGY in lneuND

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Irish Roots 1996 Numher Ithe number of lrish residentswho are members comparedto the total membership.About three quarters of mem-bers are spread throughoutthe world, only about 25 percent are resident in lreland.One wonders if the IGRS is asociety in any real sense. Theonly contact with the mem-bershlp is the I sh Genealogistand an occasional newsletier.It is likely that many mem-bers pay the subscription sim-ply to get the publications,and the sum total of theiractivities for the society is thesigning of a cheque everyyear.

An Ireland branch of theIGRS was set up in May 1986and it appeared at first as ifthe society would take uponitself the task of combatingthe widespread ignorance ofgenealogy in this country, orat least produce some mate-rial useful to researchers.Individual members of theIreland branch did some 6ig-nificant work. However, thebranch has done little duringthe entire period of its exis-tence that would be of gen-eral use to lrish amateurfamily history enthusiasts.

Apart from anything else, thebiggest delect the IGRS suf-fers ftom is the fact that it isheadquartered inLondon.Because it has been there forsixty years, we grow up withthe idea and never thinkabout it. Could anvone visu-alise the Scottish G'enealogicalResearch Society being he;d-quartered in Dublin. Theidea is absurd. The head-quaders of the IGRS shouldbe moved to Dublin. Since

lRlsH GENEALocToAL BESEARGH SoctETyMEMaERSHTP 1 9a4-92

t9'7',7

It was to develop a database

- with considerable financialaid from the state and fromother sources - and eventu-ally create permanent jobs inself-sustaining genealogy cen-tres. This plan is known asthe Irish Genealogical Project(IGP). Nobody who haslooked into the situationbelieves that this small coun-try can support 35 genealogycentfes; one ot two percounty, each employing atleast two full-time workers.Even with an increase inresearch commissions comingfrom outside Ireland, busi-ness will never be that good.Already, we have two profes-sional associations, the Asso-ciation of ProfessionalGenealogists in lreland, hav-ing a membership of aboutsixteen f ull-time genealogists,and the Association of UlsterGenealogists and RecordAgents having four or five.According to a recent articlein the London Tines there are20 full-time professionalgenealogists in Britain. TheAssociation of Genealogistsand Record Agents theBritish organisation for pro-fessional and semi-profes-sional genealogists - has amembership of about 100. IfBritain with its relativelyhuge population and a veryhealthy interest in genealogycannot support more thanthat number of professionals,how can we expect to?

The mode of operation of IGPcentres is another problem.The way the centres are oper-ating runs counter to theIFHS aim of promoting the

ls86 1989 1993

accessibility of archival mate-rial, since the IGP allows nodirect access to their records.As far as family historyresearchers are concerned,this makes the database nextto useless. The amateurgenealogists wants to makehis own discoveries. Evenfrom the point of view ofmarketing abroad, forbiddenaccess will prove disastrous.If we draw a parallel betweengenealogy and fishing, theproblem will seem clear. Atourist aomes to Treland on afishing holiday, so $'hat doesthe tourist authority do toencourage him? They pro-vide him with everything heneeds to get on with hishobby: information aboutwhere to go, accommodation,well-stocked lakes, boats, etc.They most certainly do notmeet him on his arrival with abag of dead fish. But that iswhat the IGP intends to do ingenealogical terms. Insteadof providing fishing tackleshops they are providing fish-monger shops.

Since the split in the IFHS, thenon-commercial side has hadtime to work on some of itsoblectives and not to be exclu-sively caught up in extrane-ous matters of tourism andiob creation. However, apartfrom producing its Ioumaland one or two other publica-tions, it has not been tooactive.

An examination of IFHSmembership is quite instruc-tive. From its encouragin8beginnings in 1985 of 334members, to an impressive

voting by proxy is permissi-ble, such a move could beaccomplished.

IFHSThe Irish Family History Soci-ety is of more recent origin. Itwas founded in September1984 and adopted a numberof objectives at its first AGMin November 1985. The twoobjectives which it set itselfare almost identical to thoseof the IGRS. ',(a) Ta Promoteand encourage the publicstudy of Irish family history,genealogy, heraldry and localhistory with particular reference to Ireland. (b) To pro-mote the preservation,security and accessibility ofar.hival material'.

From the very beginninB, theIFHS seems to have beenside-tracked. It began to con-centrate all of its efforts onjob-creation and tourism-ori-ented tasks. We are told in its1989 iournal that: 'Over thepast five years meetings wereheid every three months, themain business being theorganisation of family historyresearch groups in eachcounty, with an interchangeof ideas on the work requiredon the indexation of parishregisters, the introduction ofcomputers, and a host ofother things relative togenealogy'.

At the 1988 AGM it was pro-posed that a co-operative ofall indexing groups beformed. The following yearthe co-operative was formedwith twenty-f our members.Essentially, the associationsplit into two parts. One partwas to be purely commercial.

Toral IGRS Mena:nsxln lcnev)lRrsH BESTDENTS (wxrr: lro 961l srrrurrox^L llErEEBsHtp r.or trcl-uDEol

100

1984 r985 1986 1987 t988 t989 t990 t99t t992

28

Irish Roots 1996 Numher I

800 334

roo I t+sl

793 members for 1994-95, theIFHS equalled the member-ship of the IGRS in ten years.However, a closer look at theIigures, gives a different per-spective. The number of Irishmembers has always beensmall, considerably less than200. Consequently, there is aIarge foreign membership.This may give the impressionthat that the organisation isknown all over the world andis therefore of importance;and that membership of theorganisation is so worthn'hilethat people from all cornersof the world wish to join.

Both impressions are erro-neous. In most cases, the peo-ple resident outside Irelandwho join the IFHS are mem-bers of genealogical associa-tions in their own countries.They have found out aboutthe IFHS, not through public-ity carrjed out by the societybut through their own

Logo of Din LaoghaireGenealogical Society

national associations. Theyjoin up in the hope of Bettingimmediate and cheap assistance in tracing their ownroots.

On balance, such membersare a liability to an organisa-tion like the IFHS. Thev arevery difficult to satisfy'andthey take up too much of thesociety's resources. The society is distracted from its realwork: educating the people athome and improving theresearch facilities for familyhistory enthusiasts resident inIreland. I would say that inconsidering the strength andimportance of the IFHS, theforeign members should notbe counted. Only Irish Resi-dents can do anything todevelop genealogy here.

In respect of its large foreignmembership, the IGRS andthe IFHS are similar. The for-eign membels help to boost

lFrsH FAMTLY Hts?oRy SoctervMEMBERSHtp I 985.93

ToTAL: cREy BABS; IRrsH REsrDElTs: wHtTE BARS

Organisations (CIGO) wasfounded recently. The Coun-cil aims to promote the inter-ests of genealogy in Ireland ata national level. All existinggenealogical societies, includ-ing the local societies, wereinvited to join.

GonclusronTo sum up the foregoing, Iwould say that we have allthe elements of an excellentgenealogical establishment inIreland.

We have the beginnings of anetwork of local societieswhich may spread out tocover all the cities and maintowns in the country. Peoplewill be drawn into these soci-eties and genealogy willbecome a force in Ireland.That should lead on to thestrengthening of a centralorganisation, one of the chief

390 4l'7 343(58) (94) (98)

510 549 531 652 624(138) (122) (rr2) (142) (8r)

100

l98s 1986 1987

membership figures andmask the real situation,namely that both organisa-tions are really very smalland inactive.

Local SocietiesThe only thing of value hap-pening in genealogy at themoment is the setting up ofsome local family historysocieties. At the momentthere are six such societies inthe Republic and eight inNorthern Ireland. TheG eneal o g i c nl Re s e a r ch D ir ecl oryIists over 100 such societies inBritain and 230 in the USA.

At the Family History Fair inLondon last May, there wereover 80 stalls, more than halfwere being run by local fam-ily history societies, somewith membership of 3,000,4,000 and even 10,000. Mostof the throngs of peopleattending the Fatu wereBritish. The Second IrishCenealogical Congress heldin Dublin in 1994 made aninteresting contrast. Almostall of the stalls were commer-cial and most of the people inattendance were resident out-sied of Ireland. People still

1988 r989 1990 l99t r992 1993

think genealogy is for export.The job to be done is to makethe situation in Ireland like itis in the rest of the world.

Northern Ireland is very wellorganised and is certainlyyears ahead of the Republic.A network of eight branchesis in operation, each of whichhas a monthly meeting. Theannual programme of meet-ings and lectures for eachbranch, together with otherinformation about the society,is on the internet. The NIFHShas also acquired newpremises recently.

Societies have been started upin Ballinteer, Wicklow andCork in the last few years.All seem to be going well.Cork now has a membershipof 74, forty of whom arelocals who regularly attendmeetings. Similar societieshave been functioning inRaheny, Dun Laoghaire andWexford for many moreyears. They are the hope forthe future of Irish genealogy.

CIGOAn organisation called theCouncil of Irish Genealogical

IRrsH FaMrLy HtsroFy SoctETy MEMaEBSHtp 1994-95BY CoUNTRY oF NESIDE cE

functions of which will be topush for better research facili-ties and the inclusion of fam-ily history studies in primary,secondary and third level cur-ricula. Whether this centralorganisation will be CIGO ora repatriated ICRS or a revi-talised IFHS, or an amalga-mation of all three remains tobe seen

We have two publicationsIrisfu Roots as the popular, reg-ular and newsy magazine andthe ltisll Cenenlogist lot thepublication of longer, morescholarly works, but with thebias firmly changed towardsuseful genealogy articles.

We need the will to put thosejigsaw pieces together.

Tony McGarthyr00

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NZ REP oF IFL

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AusrRALn CAxaDA USA VaRDUs

Irish Roots 1996 Number 2

THE FuruHE oF GE EALocy tr{ IFELAND

An oprn LETTER To rHE Eotron oF ,BrsH BootsT IS A MATTER of regretthat 1ris, Roors should havechosen to launch its serieson 'The Future of Geneal-ogy in Ireland' with an attackon the Irish Genealogical

Research Society, an organisationwhich is manifestly outside lreland.

TheIGRS isnot, andneverhasbeen.'in heland', and no amount ofrhetodc calling for'repatriation'can alterthe histodcal fact that it wasfounded in London bypeople deeplyconcerned at the loss of Irishgenealogical records in Dublin dur-ing the Civil War. Apafi from thewaryears, when its valuable librarywas evacuated to the country forsafekeeping, it has remained there.

The governing Council ofthe Soci-ety thusdoes notbelieve it right thata British-based ffor historical rea-sons) organisation should partake i nthe internal politics of the pan Ireland genealogical scene- The foun-dation and management of variousenterprises like the Irish Genealog-ical Project and the Council of IrishGenealogical Organisations areproperly the concern of genealogists within the island of Ireland,and we would not presume to offeropinions unless invited.

I do not see it as my role to defendour Society. It stands by its recordas a registered charity over sixtyyears, with a membership coveringthe globe. But I feel bounden tocorrectcertain factual errors in yourarticle.

You state that 'it would be a fairsumming up to say that the objec-tives of the Society are to popularise genealogy and Io collect...relevantmaterial.' It is not a fairsummingup. The objectives ofrheSociety have never included 'popularising genealogy' (howeveryou!a non-member, may seek to inter-pret ourrules), and we cannot therefore be legitimately crilicised forfailing to do so. There is a world ofdifference between promoting theserious study of lrish genealogy andpopularising it.

As to our title, it should be appre-ciated that it is the GenealogicalResearch that is lrish, not the Society. Since, however, some 25 percent ofour membership live in lre-land (as might be expected) there isan Ireland Branch 10 ?romote co-operation between them and torelieve some of the administrativeburden on Londo11. Wemaintain themost cordial rglations with ourfriends and coll€agues in Ireland.who are repfesented on our gov-eming Council, and we fully intendthat this happy situation continues.Oircolleagues in the Ireland Branchhave total freedom to partake - or

not to partake in genealogicalmatters within the shores of Ireland.I am pleased to say that I have thefull backing of the Ireland BranchCommittee in this effort to put therecord straight.

Your attempt to 'give the flavour'of Ihe ICRS by quoting from theRules ofthe Society is unfair. Thecurrent Rule 6 bea$ no relation toyour extract, and has not done formany years. Rule 10, which gov-erns the granti ng of fellowships 'forgenealogical attainments or work onbehalf of the Society' is entirelyunexceptional, and a universallyaccepted way in which thanks andgratitude can be expressed to indi-viduals in the absence of monetaryaward.

Toimply that members sohonouredplace the letters FIGRS after theirnames as (to quote you) 'if it weresome kind of academic qualification' is a nonsense. A cursory glanceat our membership list will showquite a number with postnominalinitials, academic or otherwise. lsa Knight of Malta to be castigatedfor putting KM after his name?Indeed, it says much for our Fellows that never in the history oftheSociety has thehonourbeen utilisedfor personal aggrandisement,despite your implication.

You referdisparagingly to 'an occa-sional newsletter'. The newsletteris bi-annual, and as can happenwhen a society depends entirely onthe free Iime of its volunteers -sometimes it is published laterthanscheduled. Your remark that anewsletler giving details ofa forth-coming AGM was not delivereduntil afterthe date of the meeting ismischievous. Official notice oftheAGM is published somesix monthsin adv ance in The I r i s h G ene alo I ist,oLrr annual journal which goes toevery member.

Your comparison of our Societywith the Society ofCenealogists isinvalid. We are not the 'equivalent'ofthe SoG, which is an organ-isation with a coilrhercial wing andpaid staff serving its host country.Neither is our Society a family his-tory society, of which there areeleven in London alone.

We receive many hundreds of leFIers evety year from around theworld. and actasan unofficial clearing house, di recting enq ui rers to theproper sources and autho ties. Allthese ate answered by our volun-teers, in their own time, and veryoflen at their own expense. OurSociety gains absolutely nothingfrom these endeavours except thesalisfaction that we arc adhering toour founding principle of promot-ing Irish genealogy.

In our Library in London, membersand visito$ fi ndnotonlythebiggestcollection of Irish genealogicalmaterial outside Ireland. but also a

body ofexpertise where advice andguidance is freely given. Theromantic image of the Irish emj-grantmakinghis way to the far corners of the eafih may sometimescloud the fact that the ports ofEng-land and Scotland were formany nota stepping stone to the Americas orto Australasia. but their final rest-ing place, as it was for my patemalgrandfather, who left the greenfields of his native County Tyroneto die unloading coal boats in theGlasgow docks.

Which brings me to the statementin yourarticle thatour Society was,and by inference still is, keen onattracting the '.ight people'. Onmy maternal side there are Duffys,O'Gradys, McSherrys, McMenemys, O'Garas, Mccaffertys.Among the latterwas a lady, unableto read or write, who ran two pub-lichouses (bars) inthe Scottish steeland coal town ofCoatbridge. I won-der ifshe and herdescendants couldbe considered the 'right people'?Thetruth is,of course, thatourSociety welcomes every class. everynationalily, every creed, and theonly criteria is a passion for Irishgenealogical research.

Our workin collecting materials forour Library is on-going, with 4lnew acquisitions being listed in thelast Newsletter, along with 17 birth-briefs and four lengthy 'Member'sQueries'. And there is anothersidetoourwork: as aresultof approachesto our Society by two adopted indi-viduals - one in Canada. one inLondon and by a child adoptionagency, we are attempting to unravelthe ldsh antecedents of those con-cerned. Such important work isunpaid and unpublicised.

You make great play with ourmem-bership figures, devoting l2 single-column inches of space to twographs. You imply the figures arestatic. I would say they were steady.However strange it may be to you,this Society does nof gauge its success on mere numbers. Unlike ajournal such as /risfr Raots, whichrelies on circulation. we are not inthe numbe$ game.

We do, in fact, discourage prospec-tive members who believe Ihat wewill provide a family tree goinS backtoB an Boru forthecost ofayear'ssubscription. We welcome peoplewhose desire to join a r€gisteredcha ty isprompted by what they cancontribute ratherthan what they canget out of it.

Your reluctant recagnition of theqLrality of scholarshipevidentin our

lonrna\, The I"i.sh Genealogist, rsfollowedby the suggestion that 'fewifany ofthe articles are ofany valueto the average family historyresearcher.' If this mythical crea-ture actually exists, I would directhim to the current issue where hewill find, for example, afiicles onbaptismal, marriage and burialrecords from Finglas, CounfyDublin, 1658-1684, some RoyalIdsh Constabulary emigmnts (basedon research at the Public RecordOffice in Kew, London), and theMusIer Roll ofthe lOth New YorkVolunteer Infantry, 1861-1865,which included many I shmenandthe sons of hishmen in rts ranks.No value?

The joumal anicles refl ect the mem-bershipandaims ofthe IGRS, whichare non-secta an and cross-border.and mirror Ihe Irish diasporathroughout the world. They do notreflect the myopic view of Irishgenealogy which your afiicleappears to espouse.

Again, you claim that the lrelandBranch has done little that wouldbe of use to 'lrish amateur familyhistory enthusiasts' (your descrip-tion). Why do you insist on attribut-ing to us functions which form nopart of our raison d'etre? On theother hand, you conveniently omittomention the very largepartplayedby membe$ of our lreland Branchin the organising ofthe SecondlrishCenealogical Congress in Dublintwo years ago-

The Irish Genealogical ResearchSociety is a democratic organisa-tion, working strictly to the guide-lines laid down by the CharityCommissioners of England andWales. It is responsibleto its mem-bers, who have the power to initi-aIe any changes they considerdesirable.

The Society will continue to playits role in the world-wide lrishgenealogical scene, a role deter-mined by its founding principles,its rules and its members. It is notdetermined by outside influenceswith unknown molives. Having saidthat. we welcome constructive cricicism from any source - even lris&Roors. And we look forward posi-tively to the continuing debate on'The Future of Genealogy in lre-land'.

I think it is fitting that I concludewith a quotation from the inaugu-ral speech ofPresidenl Mary Robin-son to the First Irish GenealogicalCongress: 'lt is good to be remindedthatthe Irish experience andthe cul-tural expression of what it meansto be lrish are not lhings which areconfined to this island'.

Yours sincerely,Robin McNee Findlay,

Chairman of the Council.82 Eaton Square, London.

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Irish Roots

Tne Furune or

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1996 Number 2

Chief Herald wls a .o"t.ou"._sial but, in the present wdter,sopinion, absolutely necessarvreforrn. The standirds of eoui_table public service which eiisrin the National Libratvalenowin the process of beine aooliedin the Genealosicai tr'fn."Rather than coitinuing tooppose necessary change, andmdeed attempting to under_mrne the authoritv of the newChief Herald, it behovesgenealogists to put folwardconstructive proposals tormprove serrricesforall, be thevprofessionals, amateurs or viJ_itors from abroad. The follow_rng are some of the presentwriter's ideas for improve_ments-

The reformed GenealosicalOJfice should become the"coreot a new dedicated referenceand information facilitv. Dro_viding free and adequat'Jb'asicorientin g ad vice f or iallers, vis_rtots lrom abroad inDarticula rand with access to ihe widesrpossible range of printed andmlcrolotm sources andresearch aids, aswell as atleastsome self-service copvine f acil_ities. Thewriter isn6ianlxo"rrin heraidry, but has been ion_siderin g recentl y tha t the wholequestion of appropriate struc-tures lorheraldry in a republicneeds to be er,amined. Tlie realmprovements in the NationalLrbrary services ovet the oasfiew years are obvjous to'lhejair-minded, and more can beachieved if we support man_agement and staff in theiretlorts to secure additionallesources from government.rne mam problem for qeneal_oglsts continues to be d:eterio_ration ofthe microfilm stock ofCatholic parish registets, anda worrying trend on the part ofchurch authorities not iust toinhibit, but to forbid unv'u"""".to some registers. It sh'ould beremembered that Catholicparish registers ale private,notpubLc records, and lobbvinoof the hierarchy must prole.Son the basis of periuasionra ther than demanr]

In the case of the NationalArchives, we should alsoacknowledge the greatrmprovement in facilities in thefine new reading room inBishop Street, evei jf in.r"r"_ing numbers of users arealready causing some strains.Notwithstanding the perermialproblems of shortag-e of staffand resources, the NationalArchives urgentiy needs tolmprove jts cataloguing andupdate lts reports, as well aspublishing griides to irs hold-ings. Microfiim copies of sur-viving Church oflreland parishregisters for the whole 6f fre_land should be made available,ano lt rs suggested that theArchives should also assumethe task of securing microfilmcopres ol surviving Dissenterchurch registers, ieavine theNational Library to conceitrateon the Catholic-registers.

While sharing concern aboutthe possible removal of rheGeneral Register Officeresearch facility from Dublinto Roscommon, ihe writerwon_dered at the purely conserva_trve nature of the campaisnagahst the change. Ifprciperiye\ecuted, computerisa tion ofthe national vital recordswould greatly enhance access.and if online research facili_ties were provided around thecountry, the locationof theree_istration headquarters wouidbe irrelevant. Did the cam_paigners take the opportunityro orscusssuchmatters with theDepartmentof Health, and Der_haps also suggest thatpresiureshould be takin off thie inade_quate Lombard Street Eastlacility, by makinq availablemicrofiche copies ot existinrindeyesin the National Librariand countv librarie.,? '

GelrEAlocy in lneuNDast year's qovernmentdecision to c"ombine thel-rposts of Director of the

National Libraryof Ireland and

lN PART 2 of this series, Senr Munpuv MA. oro_Iessronat genealogist and part{ime adult ed jca_tion.lecturer in geheatogy' in UniversiU CJLoIuuo n, comments on the main archives, the lri6hGenealogical project and the Associarion ol pi-o_tessional Genealogists in lreland.

CHnRres. Keuy describes how genealogy fares inScotland and compares it to th; f risn eiferience.R.oBtN McNEE Ftruornv, Chairman of the Councilof the.lrish Genealogical Research Society, rn anopen letter to the Editor ol trish Boots,,Lpil"slocriticism of the Society in part 1 of the series.

The lrish Genealogical proiect,established without sufficientplanning and excluding manyqualified and experiencid pei_sonnet, appears to be undergo-rng a process of re_evaluationat present, at the end of whichthe better tesearch centresshould be supported and per_naps encouraqed to reviewtheirclosed acciss policies. Thewriterhasmadehimself greatlvunpopular by his touitr butmetited criticisms of the:Clansof Ireland', and followire theremoval of the organisitiontrom i ts inappropriate locationin the Genealogiial Office, it isregretted ifany staff weremaderedundant rather than rede_ployed.

The Editor of this publicationhas made some valid ctiticismsof eristing amateur qenealoei_cal societies, towhiclithe wriierwould only add the observa-tion that the term ,amateur'need not connote lower stan_dards. As for members of theAssociation of professionalGenealogists in Ireland andother working genealogists,perhaps we all might considerways in which we could bettermerit the term,professional,.Many if not mosi of the Drob-lems_ affl ictir g Irish g"r,"ilogyresult from lack of adeouatieducation and traininq siruc_tures, and the writer i;at Dre_sent working with the tiCDAdult EducJtion Office andothers to upgrade his eyistingcourses m genealogv. Itisquiteextraordinary hoi murru ir".r_ple undervilue the 16l; ofscholarship in geneaiogy, andrather than merely pill#ine orbelittling Macl-ysi gh t,,iorE ofus need tobuild on and develoDhis work. Finally, let us not foi-get that while genealosists areperhaps the larlestsinile user_group of librarv and archivefacilities, the needs of othersmust be served also, and wemight take the opportunitv toacldress the problim ofourieo_Lrtation for being difficuit,ctemanding ard somewhatself_obsessed.

Sean Murphy MA

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Tne Furunn or

I

small, that has as its business geneal

Those of us whose business itis to curate, conserve andorganise holdings ofgenealogical records aresometimes guilty of c.uingmore about the documenithan the end user, the ghtfulheir to those documents.With the millennium fastupon us, it is time to look tothe future of genealogicalresearch on this island, andtime for the various agencies,organisations and co-operative ventures aheadv underway to refocus and io look togreater cohesion and conver-gence than ever before in thehistory of the State. Centralto that convergence is thermpact ot ever sophisticatedtechnology in linking centres,in accessing records andeventually in the full-textstorage of documents on-lineor on CD-ROM.

TWO TIERED STBUCTUNEMy vision is of a two-tieredstructure for all those on theancestral trail - (i) free andopen access to records held innational and public institu-tions, paraileied by the provi-sion of (ii) value-added'services where appropriateand where available on pay-ment of modest fees. Idonotnor have I ever believed thatgenealogy in Ireland is thegoose that laid a golden egg.Many, many people are --infected bv the excitemenf ofthe search, the sense of beinga detective in their own lifestories. These people do notwanL what Tony Mccarthv soaptly if somewhat unpoeti-

GnrEAtoGy in lneunNDNames. Euery nrt is inscribed with them. Euerv life depends on them.I was to find. out, as I seorched for information ibout he'r, just howwounding theif absence can be. objecL Lessons, Eavai tsoland, 1 996

hat qu,otation from Eavan Boland's prose memoir should hangfrom the walls of eve,ry institution dn this island, large and "

cnuntless Irish people or descendants of Irish people who sei out onthe ancestor trail in lreland or wherever it is that l?ish people seektheir roots today.

Dn Pnr DoruloruDirector of the National Library

and Chief Herald ot lrelandwrites about her hopes and plans for

the future of genealogy in lreland

cally re{erred to as the 'bae ofdeai fish . Nor do thev wlnrto pay for much of thisl Theywill pay reasonable fees for 'specific services - print outs,photographs, specialistpathfinders. TheNationalLibrary aims to provide thistwo-pronged service by thecontinued provision of suchsources as are within its col-

lections - access to micro-films of parish records, ofnewspapers, maps, any andall publications ot inteiest,monitored access to itsmanuscript holdings - allfree of charge. Where thefork divides into a secondprong is the provision ofvalue-added services, whereinformation, advice, consulta-

Herald of lreland and her Duputysrgnrng a patent of arms at the

15

tions are provided on a slid-ing scale of fees but all withinthe scope of the averageresearcher.

NEW DEVELOPiIENTSAt present steps are underway at the GenealogicalOffice and the NationalLibrary to smarten the serviceoffered to date and to injectadditional resources, finan-cial, capital and technologicalinto the long-establishedinstitution. Briefly the plansencompass long-term a dedicated, open-access Genealogi-cal Reference Centre to behoused in the refurbishedextension to the NationalLibrary into the formerNational College of Art andDesign premises. This spacewill be so laid out that smallfamily groups can worktogether around a table with-out irritation or inconve-nience to other librarv users.This additional accorirmoda-tion will also enable theLibrary to provide its collec-tions of microfilms, parishregigters and newspapers onopen access in a greatlyenlarged space. Central tothis plan is the provision of adedicated reference andquery desk for all genealo-gists sited in a new receptionarea. Additional facilities -not e\clusive to genealogy -but welcome to all footsoreand weary researchers are theprovision of a caf6 (with,whispel it, a wine licence)and shop selling publicationsof relevance to the Library'scollections. The plans arealreadv well advanced andwork is to begin on site inIune 7997, with a completiondate some two vears hincp

Also due to be handed over tothe Library in May of 1997 isanother refurbished building,the old racquet court at therear of 2/3 Kildare Street.This building will providespace and facilities to theLibrary to carry out anaggressive programme ofpreservation mictofilmine ofall Irish newspapers wheiher

Mr Fergus Gillespie,Genealogical Office.


series of records anddocuments on anisland-wide basis.

held by the Library or inother repositories. This pro-gramme of microfilming Irishnewspapers should be com-plete within a five yearperiod, by which time it isenvisaged that the facilitywould then engage inmicrofilming, on a -needs basis, a whole I

repeated for their benefit.High praise indeed!

Several new multi-mediaguides are being acquired toaid the researcher in thiswork - the International

Genealogical lndex is nowavailable in CD-ROM and hasamongst its several hundredmillion names, one millionIrish records.

John Grenl-ram has not beenidle either, and has producedan interesting research toal inGrcnham's lrlsh Recordfinder, acomputer-based compositelisting of major recordsources, street guides, cen-suses, graveyards, tradedirectodes and many, manyother sources. Both of thesevaluable tools will beacquired this year and shouldgreatly enhance research inthe field. The GenealogicalOffice is looking to its ownfiles and records oI researchgoing back to Maclysaght'sday and is currently investi-gating the possibility of scan-ning and indexing itstypescdpt family researchfiles either as an internalresearch tool or for wider dis-tribution via CD-ROM.

PHOTOGRAPHSAnother as yet under-utilisedelement Ior those seekingIamily roots is the NationalLibrary's quarter of a millionphotographs dating from thelast decades of the nineteenthcentury to the present day.To coincide with the immi-nent transfer of this archive to

a new custom-built NationalPhotographic Archive inTemple Bar's Meeting HouseSquare, work is under way todigitise and index the collec-tion making browsing andsearching inf initely easier

than ever before. One collec-tion in line for treatment isthe 5,000 glass plate negativesfrom the Poole Collectionfrom Waterford. Many ofthese have never seen thelight of day since leavirgPoole's studio and many areportraits - all dated andidentified. All of these por-traits are somebody's ances-tors and it will be fun to seehow many of them will even-tually find their way'home'.This cache of images togethelwith the better knownLawrence, Valentine andEason collections of locationsall over Ireland, we hope mayprovide tangible records forrnany of the Library'sgenealogical researchers.

WHO'S IN CHARGEAnd on a national level if onewere to ask the questionwhose baby is genealogy?The answer must surely beeverybody's and nobody's...To date there is no cogentnational policy on genealo8yand genealogical records.The stakeholders are many atboth macro and micro levels.At Government level therehas and continues to be inter-est and involvement from agreat range of tovernmentdepartments - the Depart-ment of the Taoiseach, theDepartment of Tourism andTrade, the Department of

Finance, the Department ofEnterprise and Employment,the Depaltment of Arts, Cul-ture and the Gaeltacht, theDepartment of the Environ-ment, the Department of Edu-cation, the Department of

Foreign Affairs, theDepartment of Health

- and I query thelack oI a national pol-icy! At national levela great number ofinstitutions carrymaterial necessary tothe researcher - theNational Archives,the National Libraryand its GenealogicalOffice, the Royal IrishAcademy, the Gen-eral Register Office,the Public RecordOffice of NorthernIreland, the UlsterAmerican Folk Parkand many, manymore.

The Heritage Councilhas firmly claimedgenealogical recordsas part of its remit

and has established a Sub-Committee to explore perti-nent issues. The muchmaligned Irish GenealogyLimited is in the process ofliberation from its limbothrough the appointment of aChief Executive, the electionof a Chairperson and theputting in place of an Execu-tive structure for its Board ofDirectors together with a filmprogramme of work andreassessment for the next twoyeals.

Operating at local level arelocal history societies, thecentres operated by the IrishFamily History Foundation,local libraries, some regionalarchives, specialist sdcietiesand above all the enthusiasticgroup of individuals pursu-ing their passion for the sub-ject. It certainly is what TonyMcCarthy so aptly called 'jig-saw pieces'- or perhapswhat I would prefer to viewas a patchwork quilt. Atpresent the pattern resemblesa crazy patchwork and notthe planned co-ordinateddesign so pleasing to the eye.Fach of these bodies. each ofthese institutions, each indi-vidual has a role to play inoverall provision of researchfacilities. It is vital that col-lectively we collaborate andco-operate to provide the bestresearch facilities this countrv

CURREl{TIMPROVEIIENTSBut, all of this is long-term. What about now,I hear you ask? Well,even as I write theGenealogical Office isundergoing an internalreview process which islooking critically at allits operations. One ofthe flag-ship venturesof the late eighties wasthe establishment of aConsultancy Servicebased in the Genealogi-

under review and shortly arevamped service will beavailable. This is based oncomments and observationsreceived over the years on theservice and will consist of theprovision of group introduc-tory sessions on 'tracing yourroots', a basic initial assess-ment, and a modified versionof the original individual cus-tomised service. All of thesewill be provided on a feebasis, but with the fees sopitched that it is hoped noone will be excluded becauseof lack of resources.The ser-vice is being streamlined insuch a way that it is intendedto provide all comers withsuff icient key inf ormationthat we will no longer witnesslong queues of frustratedclients and harassed staff atthe National Library's issuedesk. Meanwhile all the frontline seNice staff of theLibrary and GenealogicalOfIice have undertaken aseries of specific in-housetraining courses provided bysuch expelts in the field asSean Murphy and the trainingsub-committee of the Associa-tion of Professional Genealo-gists in Ireland. So suciessfuland popular were thesecourses that staff not includedin the first programme haverequested that they be

16

Irish Roots 1996 Number 3can supply, which do justice to the proudhistory of our people. lt is as much acase of national pride and nationalimportance as the overwhelminga(knowledgement of achievement by ourOlympic Team witnessed on our shoresthese heady days. There is a place for allin this scheme oI things, for we are notcompetitors but collaborators. I look tothe day when we will have a peaceablekingdom where the genealoqical larnbwill lie down with the genealogical lion,both working together for the commongood. We have needs: we need a ratio-nally co-ordinated audit of records. Weneed closer networking with organisa-tions abroad. We need an openness toconstructive cliticism so that we canrespond positively to such criticism with-out diving into the nearest bunker.Thomy patches continue to thdve in thisfamily flowerbed, such as the still unre-solved issue of access to certain Catholicparish records, a central location fordccess to the CRO files, the long awaitedcentral indev from the ICL proiect... br-ltthis is after alld 'familv affair'and solu-tions will best be reactied through dis-cussion, argument, debate - love, painand the whole damn *ring.

Il{ coNcLUstoNWhat bettel place to air these seriousissues than through the pages of lr"is,Roofs.

I starLed this drticle wjth a quotationfrom Eavar Boland and would like toend by quoting in its entirety thatdelightful poem by my colleigue fromthe National Librarv Dr Filis NiDhuibhne, Roots.

Today a note from M. O'BrienAtriaed in my letter tra!.

'Can you lrace my rools? he a<ks.'What will I haae to paV?

'My forefnther is Brian Boru,I want you lo link him lo meOn a tree of yellow calJskin.I'u prepated to parl a fee.'

In his letter he enclosesData on his eld.erc and betterc:

His fathet and mother,Their fathers and mothers

And a couple of dozen sisters and brothers.

The census of '51Records the famih1 itr Chorht:

Thc head of lh? household a weo,tet,The mother a mother,

One son a hand in a miIIAnd the other (aget 10)

A drawer of coal,

The census of'61Records the familv in Bolton:

The father a power-loom weaz)er ,The mother a mother,

One son a hand in a millThe other a collier

And one daughter (aged 10)A scholar.

The census of '81Recotds the famiLl in Wigan:

The head of the household blind .

The mother a fishmonger,One son a hand in a mill,

The other a collierThe daughter a frame tenterAnd a grandson (aged 10)

A scholar:The father of Mister O'BrienDescend.ant of Btian Boru.

I toant to reply to his lettet:Keep your cash:

Clont arf har dly matter s

To one whose genes suroiaedThe pits and mill6 of Wigan,

Whose mother's days loete wooenIn the powerful looms ol Bolton,

Whose childhood hours atcrc anPntWith the ursold herrings' stehch.

But instead I send an iwoiceFor ten pounds fifty penceAnd enclose a coat of armsTo adorn his bedside shelf

@ Eilis Ni Dhuibhne 1984

Dr Pat Donlon, Aususr t996

National Archives PlannJune of Lhis year, the National A rchi\ esAdvisory Council presented a documententitled ,4 luture fot our Past: Stftttegit

Plan for the National Archioes 1996-2001'toMichael D. Higgins, the Govemment Min-ister with responsibility for thdt aspect oflrjsh heritdge. The Council is composedoF lwelve people, mostly academiis andarchivists, and its function is to advise theMinister in relation to archives bothnational and local.

The plan draws attention to two funda-mental deficiencies: a serious shortage ofsuitable storage space ard er.tremellilowstaffing levels.

Both the amount of space available and thestoragecond itionsatthe premises at BishopStreet require immediate improvement.Much of the Bishop Street complex, par-ticularly a large wirehouse to tfie rear, isstill used by the Covernment SuppliesAgency, despite an undertaking to vdcatethe bu ilding by loe3. Space is sdrestricLedthal the annual transfer of departmentaldnd courtpaperswillharetoceasein 1997.

Staffing level is extremely low - it stillstands at_ 35 while PRONI, for example,has a staff of94. In 1976, when the staffing

level was slightly higher, there were 4,184visits by members of the public to the read-ing room. Last year there were iust under20,000 visits. Between lq88 dnd l9q5 theamount of matedal held at the NationalArchives more tha n doubled; it is expectedto double again in the next ten !ears. Theplan suggests that the numbbr of staffshould be doubled in a n effort to cope withthe huge backlog of worl to be do;e.

The plan makes many other worthwhilerecommendations, some of which, ifadopted, would be useful to genealogists.Tt suSgests, for example, thaf the Depart-ment of Education should establisli theextent of National School records, clarifytheir legal status arld secure their depositeither with local archives services br, ifthese are not available, with the NationalArchives.

Vfhat are the chances of these suggestionsbeing acted on I The sa me poin hs were madein lhe Thircl Repott ol lhe National ArchiuesAdaisory Countil publjshed in 19q3 and noimprovements welemadeinthe nine areasthal were singled out as being important,such as the fact that the Nationa I A rchivesdoesnotmeetminimumintemationalstan-dards of temperature and humidity in stor-age areas

The report will probably be shelved sincethere is nostrong lobby group to pressurisepoliticians into implementing it.Lamentably, the last d ramatic inLen",entionmade by our politicians in the area ofarchives was in I422 when theybombed LheFour Courts.

Tony McCarthy


Tne Furune or

I rTv dream for Irishl\ /l Lenealoeu in t-.r'rt.'I Y lVears tiri! is for firitclass res6arch facilities in ournational record repositodesand good practical advice ser-vices lor do-it-yourself over-seas visitors; a network ofco-operative local societiestfuoughout the country doingvaluable and voluntaryresearch and conservationwork; and a body of expertprofessionals genealogists,record agents and index hold-ers providing competent andcompetitive services.

My nightmare is of thirdworld research facilities in thenational repositodes andchaos for DIY visitors; a lot ofsocieties at cross-purposes, allpolluting the world withparish newsletter-type jour-nals full of fragmentarygravestone inscriptions andhalf-baked advice; and a gov-ernment-backed caltel presid-ing over an impersonal,incompetent pre-packagedresearch service.

In between these twoextremes is the status quo:second rate research facilitiesin the national reDositoriesand limited adviie for DIYvisitors; several societies hop-ing to co-operate and aspiringto get their individual volun-tary projects off the groundwhile furiously producingparish newsletters; and tliewhole spectrum of researchservices flom the consum-mate plofessional to the ineptconman.

LACK OF POLICYI say there are three majorproblems to be overcome. lnher contuibution to the debatein the last issue, Pat Donlonhighlighted the first of these.She listed the va ous govern-ment departments and recordrepositories whose activitiestouch on genealogy. But,while they're all onboard,there is no one steering theboat. That did not matter ter-ribly until the end of the1970s. Since then family his-

tory has become a significantcontributor to tourism in lre-land and millions of poundshave been invested in parishregister indexing schemesthroughout the countly. Thisdoes not cut across my 'lackof funding' argument, whichwill be explained later.

The money invested in index-ing projects came mainly fromthe European Union and theIntemational Fund fol Ire-

Being given carte blanche by a magazineeditor to put Jorward your views on a subjectclose to your heart is a wonderful thing. Butdeciding how to use it is difficult. When I

think of the future of lrish genealogy, I thinkof how easily it could be put on a properfooting, but also of how it is likely to developin the opposite direction. Genealogy has itsdiff iculties with bureaucracy in every countryand, naturally, people overseas aren't inter-ested in a long gripe about conditions withinIreland. So, I hope to communicate someoptimism while also facing up to the starkreality. lt would serve no purpose to avoidreference to certain areas for fear of offend-ing the people involved; not that most of mycolleagues believe me capable oI such sen-sitivity. Equally, it would be dishonest towrite a Bord Failte type article about all thenice things, while ignoring the underlyingproblems. lrish genealogy is a mess andthere is no likelihood of the story changinguntil the problems are addressed. As I seeit, there are three major obstacles to ahappy ending: lack of policy, lack of fundingand lack of co-operation.

land. However, it wasadministered by the Irishgovemment and the NorthelnIleland authodties. With theexception of a number of pro-jects run by county libraries,most of that money went topdvate sector indexing cen-tres. The majodty of thesevoluntadly belong to theumbrella group called theIrish Family History Founda-tion. One notable exception isthe Tipperary Heritage Unit.

This is controlled by theRoman Catholic Archbishopof Cashel, who has closed allother outlets of informationfrom parish registers ir-t thediocese of Cashel & Emly.No government official nolthor south of the border hascontrol of the centres whichobtained these funds. No oneis accountable and no one isin charge.

The whole development ofthe indexing centres has been,dare I say it, misguided. Iamnot questioning their place inthe scheme of things and Ihope my colleagues in thecentres will not take my com-ments amiss. My criticism isof the framework underwhich they are attempting tooperate. It seems that mostpeople agree with the predic-tion that few cenhes wouldbe viable without continuedinvestment, but no one wantsto face up to reality. Unlessthe centtes can, as some havedone, develop other sourcesof income, the only way theycan continue to operate with-out heavy subsidies is toamalgamate into regionalcentres. The other thing theywill have to address is whatthe customer wants, ratherthan what they are preparedto offer. No one who makesthe effort to travel fromNevada, New Bnrnswick orNew Zealand to trace theirancestors wants someone todo it for them. I have been aprofessional genealogist fornearly two decades and Ihave never been engaged bysomeone to do research whileftey saw the sights. Theywill commission a searchbefore or after their visit, butwhile they are in Ireland theywant to use the sources them-selves. Visiting family histo-dans (I'm not talking hereabout the tour bus brigadebut the people who knowwhat they're about) will haveto be allowed facilities to dotheir own index searches.They have been crying out forit for years.

GeUEALOGY in lnernnouy Plul Gonnv

13


Successive Irish govemmentshave done nothing for geneal-ogy beyond dishhg outmoney to indexint centres.The records in the nationalrepositories could have rottedaway for all they knew orcared. They recogrfsed thatgenealogy played an impor-tant role in toudsm, but theynever gave any thought todeveloping it in a structuredway. They seem to haveassumed that setting upindexing centres in businesswas by itself going to satisfythe tourists. All the talkabout computerised indexessounded so twentv-firSt cen-tury that they omitted to anal-vse the actual nature oflncestral research. It is notabout getting the most infor-mation in the least time.Genealogy is supposed to befun. The people who pushedwhat is now Irish GenealogyLtd and the civil servants andtourist executives whobought it had no understand-ing of what it's all about.

If we talk in purely corirmer-cial terms, Ireland's biggestselling point in relation togenealogy is that the majorityof records are centrallv avail-able in Dublin and Beifastrepositories. There is no needto tell farnily historians whata bonus that is, yet BordF6i1te (the Irish ToudstBoard) played it do*n andhyped the indexing centres,even before many of themwere in a position to providea basic service and whilenone of them intended toallow research facilities to vis-itors. BordF6ilte's'bleedthem' pdncipal dictated thattourists should affive viaSharuron Airport and be keptout of Dublin till they hadspent their money throughoutthe lour provinces. The per-ception was that ancestorhunting was an exercise inserendipity and that potteringarolmd graveyards or bother-ing people with the same sur-name was what madegenealogistshappy. BordFiilte was not interested inencouraging people to makethe most of thei limited timeby starting research in Dublinand then going to their ances-tral area. The governmentwere so ignorant of the.situa-tion that in 1992 they agreedto move the General RegisterOffice to Roscommon, awayfrom the other nationalrecord repositories. All of

this proves Dr Donlon's Point:there is a need for a govern-ment policy on genealogy; noone is in charge.

The latest controversy couldhave brought this to a headThe publication by the Minis-ter f;r Arts. Culture & theGaettacht of his National Cr.rl-tural lnstitutions Bill in lateSeptember caused dismay. asSeition 13 was headed 'Disso-lution of Genealogical Officeand transfer of its functions toBoard of Libtary'. Followingexoressions of concem fromge'nealogists in Iretand andoverseas, and much criticismwithin the Senate, the Minis-ter was in a position less thana month later to publicly statethat 'there never was a Pro-oosal...to abolish theilenealogical Office'. TheMinisfer now intends that theGO be reduced to the statusof a branch of the NationalLibrary, which amounts tothe same thing. An OPPosi-tion amendment to Section13, which proposed that theGO be confirr-ned.as an insti-tution of state in its owndght, failed to win the suP-port of independent senators.

Sooner or later, as genealo-gists become more vocal, theGovernment will have todevelop a policy on the sub-iect. In my mind, the solutionwould be to place the ChiefHerald and the GenealogicalOffice in charge of the situa-tion and give them powersAND funding to control anddevelop the field. As the GOcontroversy illustrates, politi-cians still have no real glasPof the situation.

LACK OF FUNDINGThe second obstacle I mentionabove is lack of funding, andthis is partly a by-product ofthe lack of policy. However,it is more directly a result ofthe govemment embargo oniobtin the public sector. Thisembargo has resulted in alithe Republic's record rePosi-tories long operating belowcapacity because of beingunder-staffed, as well asenduring cfu onic under-fu nd-ing. The National ArchivesAdvisory Council's StrategicPlan, which was presented tothe Minister for Arts. Culture& the Gaeltacht in June,reflects the situation in all theinstitutions. It shows that theNational Arahives now hasroughly the same level of staff

as the Public Record Officeand the State Paper Office (itspredecessors) had twentyyears ago, but almost fiveiimes the number of peopleusing it. In addition, theArcliives has still to useunsuitable of f-site storagefacilities six years after themove to the new BishoPStreet site because a large Partof its premises continues to beoccupied by the GovelnmentSupplies Agency.

The research facilities in mostof Dublin's record reposito-ries are second rate. This maYsound harsh, but it is true. Iam in no way blaming thestaff. Neither am I exactlycriticising the administration,but rathei the obstacles thevface in trying to get sufficieirtfunds from the Government.The need for off-site storagein both the National Archivesand National Library meansthat a lot of valuable materialis inaccessible, in some caseson an on-going basis. Thelack of on-the-spot photo-copying services in both insti-tutions is a nationalembarassment. TheArchives reading room andthe General Register Officeare regularly bulging at theseams. The Library's micro-films and the GRO's indexesare in a state of disrePairbeyond alarm. Even moreasfounding is the fact that theooenins hours oI both thet.ihra rriand *re GRO areshortei now than theY wereten years ago.

All of this is because succes-sive governments held a tightrein on civil service spendingAt the same time they wereonly too pleased to throwEuropean Union money t

about like confetti and con'gratulate themselves that theYwere doing wonders fortourism - and local politics.StaNing the institutions theYthemselves were responsiblefor maintaining was, and is, ashortsighted strategy. TheGRO, Archives and LibrarYare the first places manytourists see when they alrivein Ireland, despite Bord Friil-te's best efforts. Investingmoney in them would sulelYpay dividends in years tocome. Encouraging visitingfamilv historians to researchsysteiratically and get resultswould do more Ior the coun-trv's reDutation than all thecJmpuiers the EU's money

l4

can buy.

My fantasy plan is as follows.The Government wouldinvest enough money in theArchives. Librarv and GRO toallow them to open through-out the working day and inthe evenin8s, and to Provide-the basic sewices expected otsuch national institutions.The Genealogical Off icewould be restored to the sta-tus of a national institution aswell as being sufficientlYstaffed and funded to be ableto liaise with the other institu-tions and monitor facilities.They would be able to widelypubiicise the centralisediecords and expand the advi-sory service currently oPel-ated with the Association ofProf essional Genealogists inIreland. They would be in aposition to house the longoromised central index flomirish Familv Historv Founda-tion centrei. Indeed, it wouldmake more sense for a gov-ernnent oflice to suPerviseand assist indexing centresthan for the monolithic IrishGenealogy Ltd to continue toadd layers ofbureaucracY tothem.

-Alas, it is just a fan-

tasy.

LACK OFCOOPEIRATIONThe third obstacle. is some-thing the authorities cannotbe blaned for. The fault iswith Irish genealogists our-selves. It must be said thatwe have come a long waY inthe Dast few vears, but thereore itill oettr/divisions whichprevent;uiuatly beneficialdevelopments. However, thecollective response to theannouncement of the Pro-posed move of the GRO toRoscommon in 1992 wassomething of which we canbe proud. It was the first timegenealogists came togetherfbr the common good and itresulted in the Governmentagreeing to leave researchand certification {acilities inDublin, Of course, not every-one subscdbed to the GROUsers'Croup, but most did.Resultins from that consen-sus the C"ouncil of IrishGenealogical Organisations(CIGO) developed and it isabout to hold its secondannual general meetinS.

CIGO was instrumental inhaving genealogy mentionedin last vear's Heritage Act. Lt

is currentty devetoping Plansfor ioint proiects which,

Irish Roots1996 Number 4

Two of the most influentialorganisations are not teDre_sented on CIGO. the TriihGenealogical Research Soci-ety and the Irish Familv His_tory Sociery. The ICRdiseligible onlv for associatemembership because it is notbased in Ireland. However.its Ireland Branch could bp afull member. Both the IGRSIreland Branch and the IFHSwere tepresented in the GROUsers'Group but their com_mittees refu;ed to ioin CIGO.Their absense could be seenas a reflection on CIGO. Onthe contrary, I would sugeestthat the committees a.e 6it oftouch with their own mem_bership. Certainly there aremany IGRS mem6ers, includ_hg me, who can see no goodreason for the heland Bianchcommittee's attitude. As theIGRS Council appears to relyon the branch committee fo;tuidance on 'intemal, mat_ters, it seems likely that theoldest Irish geneaiogical soci_ety will remain outside thisgrowing co-operative. I amnot promotine CIGO simDlvbecause I am involved init.' T

am involved in it because Isee the co-operation of mem_bership organisations asimportant to our future.

IGRSIn the first article in thisseries, Tony McCafihy wasvery critical of both rlie IGRSarld the IFHS. I have to admit

In March 1992I wrote an arti-cle in Farzily Tree on the IGRS,and pointed out that a num-ber of overseas genealogists(by no means unscholarly)would not join because iI wo"based in London. I said thatsome members felt the societuwas elitist and the journal didnot cater for the commonman, while others worriedthat the societv wouidbecome 'popuiar, in the worstsense if the membershiDincreased too suddenly'. Isuggested that there was aneed to adapt to changinqtimes, to increase the ireir-bership in order to developthe librarv and sustain fhJsociety s scholarlv work.Later ihat vear th'e D,,.'Laoghaire'Genealogical Soci-ety proposed a Jederation ofIdsh societies. In October1992 in the same magazine,I

hopefully, will give individ-r.ral genealogistia sense ofcornmunity arrd result in use_tul research aids. Mvlongterm aspiration ior CIGOrs for a genealogists, libratv.along the lines 6f the Socie:rvof Genealogists in London. 'This is not io sugeest simnlvd uplica tin g wha"t"we alreid'vhave il oth=er repositories, b'utrather supplementjnq theirholdings, especjally ;ithoverseas material not alreadvavailable in lreland. Such a 'library would be ooen atweekends and in theevenings, when the othelrepositodes ate closed. Itwould be owned and con-trolled by genealogists, free ofthe layers of burea"ucracv orrrnational institutions harie tocontend with. It would alsobe a base for meetings andlectures. This is not;ll Die inthe sky. Itwould not bi feas;-ble for any one society, but itwould be possible under anumbrella group like CIGO.

to being a traditionalist. Ihave both sentimental andpractical attachments to ouroldest institutions, theGenealogical Office and theIrish Genealogical ResearchSociety. Some of Tony's criti-cisms of the IGRS weie. there-fore, hard to take. However,Iwas absolutelv incensed bvthe response liy Robin Fini-lay, Chairman of the IGRSCouncil (1996 No.2). Tonywas of the opinion that an'Irish' society should be basedin Ireland. Robin contendedthat it was the 'GenealosicalResearch' that was Irish-andthat the society belonged toLondon. This was news tome after seventeen vears ofmembership. In mrl opinionthe IGRS isin inteinahonatorganisation and could bebased with equal legitimacvin Rome, Geneva or-- like-the Irish Genealogical Societylntemational - St paul, Min_nesota. The fact that its head-quarters is in London isbecause it was founded thereand most of the people whorun it live in that area. Thismakes it no less an Irish soci-ety. As a quarter of its mem-bers are resident withinIreland, the IGRS Councilshould stop waiting to beinvited to offer oDinions onwhat Robin calls"the intemalpolitics of the pan-Irelandgenealogical scene'. Has theIGRS Council no opinion onthe future of the GinealosicalOffice? Politeness must h"avebeen the reason for their con-spicuous silence in recentweeks.

suggested that the IGRS wasideally placed to develop aworldwide federation foirIrish interest groups whichwould give overseas IGRSmembers an active role. Wenow have the beginnings ofthat federation in CIGdandthe IGRS is not even reore-sented in it-

When Wallace Clare foundedthe IGRS in 1936. genealogywas not a popular pursuitl'Lrcumstances have chansedbut the IGRS has not. Rob"inFindlay says any compatisonwith the Society of Geiealo_gists is invalid. If this is trueit is only because the IGRSburied its talents lons asowhile the SoG develo"oeEwith the times. The ttnSlibrary is open only on Satur-dav afternoons. This isbeiause it is rul bv a smallgroup of volunteeis, but thatsmall group will not bereplenished unless the societvbecomes more active andrecruits mole volunteels. Ttwould possibly make moresense if its headquarters werewithin lreland, but the mem-bers in London equate head-quarters with librarv. Thereis no logical reason iorremoving the library fromLondon. It gives pebple inthat area access to materialnot freely available elsewherein England, while most of it iseasy to get in Dublin reposito_ries. The idea of a eene'alo-gists'library in Irefind wouldin no way endanger the IGRSlibrary and I would be thefirst person to jump to its

Tony McCarthy's dismissal of*re Irish Genea[ogist, the ]GRStournal as containins little ofvalue to the average"familvhistorian is unfair. A loneafticle on a particular fam"ilvmay seem a waste of space,'but ovet sixty years such arti_cles grow into a rich body ofinvaluable scholarlv matlriaiThere was no otheioutlet forsuch work for most of its his-toty. The ltish Genealogist hasalso published manv rFcordswhich previously were avail-able only in manuscript form.The numerous contridutionsby Mary Clark and RavmondRefausse over the last hecadesprint to mind and it is mar-vellous to have such rnaterialon your bookshelf. However.I do see that individual issuesof the joumal fall short formost people. It could do with

an injection of reality. Itisallvery fine for the societv tothink of itself as schola'rlv anrtnot 'popular' in the wors'tsense, but we all have to startsomewhere and many IGRSmembers are raw beginnetswho need guidance. That isthe meaning of the IGRSobjective of promoting andencouraging the study of Irishgenealogy.

I may not sound like much ofa traditionalist, pokine theaged IGRS in this disrEspect-fui fashion. Actually,I a'mvery conservative and I don,twant the societv's character tochange. But I don't want it todie, either. The IGRS was theonly society around twentyyears ago. lt provided astructure for Irish geneajogylong before the boom. Itisnow one of several societies.Instead of being hidden in thecrowd, it should be settinsstandards for the others tJaspire to. To do this, it needsto wise up to present davdemands. Robin savs th;society is democrati'c. It mostdefinitely is not, and the firstthing it needs to do.is mod-ernise the election process lorthe council. Members take nointerest in the running of anorganisation if it is done forthem by a mysterious clique.Members should be encoir-aged by the very fabric of asociety to involve themselvesin every way. With a littleadaption toihanging condi-tions the IGRS could regainlts prestige and have a vervbright future.

THE FUTUBEThe concluding sentence ofthe last of mv iloots of IrishGenealogy' irticles (1996No.1) was as follows: ,If Irishgenealogy is to trow in amore structured wav in thefuture than it has in'the Dasttwo decades, it will hav6 to beremembered that it is not aboomtown, but a verv oldcommunity with old institu-tions and ; historv to beupheld'. CircumJtances mavhave rnarginalised theGenealogical Office and theIGRS in recent years, so peo-ple new to the field are not toblame for failing to appreciatetlrelr tmportance in the devel_opment of what we nowhave. However, we are notall new to the field. Anyiuture growth should have aclear view of our genealogicalnentage.

15


fl ustainabilitv and

Dr*m"*rm*in tourism. As bothtoirrist boards see familyhistory and clan reunionsas a means to drawincreasing numbers ofoverseas visitors to theseshores it means that therecent innovativedevelopments in geneal-ogy in Ireland will beincreasingly measuredagainst the yardstick ofsustainability. Hopefully,the narrow vision of anaccountant's view of sus-tainability will not hinderthe long term develop-ment of genealogy.

Development of IGPIn the first instance it was aselies of padnerships that gotthe Irish Genealogical Project(IGP) off the ground.

The first and most endur-ing partnership commencedin the 1980s when the Train-ing agencies (The Trainingand Employment Agency's(TEA) Action for CommunityEmployment (ACE) pro-gramme in the North andForas Aiseanna Saothair(FAS) in the South) fundedlocal community groups toindex records of value to fam-ily historians in their localatea.

These initial efforts atindexing recotds wete largelyuncoordinated, and as a con-sequence there were no stan-dards in methodology. In thelate 1980s the Irish FamilyHistory Foundation wasformed to cootdinate thework of local groups whowere already indexinggenealogical sources.

In 1990 the third piece inthe jigsaw was put in placewhen the International Fundfor Ireland (lFI) agreed to setaside a sum of f1.5 million forthe development of an all-Ire-land'family roots' database.The Irish Genealogical Project(IGP) now became a reality,and, in doing so, provided aunique opportunity for bothcross-border and hter-denominational co-operation.

It was agreed that the sixprincipal genealogical sourcesin Ireland should be comput-erised:1 . Civil records oI birtfu, mar-riages and deatts,2. Church records ofbap-tisms, marriages and burials;

The population of lreland,nolth and south, stands atjust live million.

Of course the danger inher-ent in these enticing statisticsis the pitfall of assumingeveryone with ethnic Irishorigins must be interested intracing theil roots. It is veryeasy to become transfixed bythe sheer size of the IrishDiaspora.

The Clans of Ireland report'Developing our GenealogicalHeritage' estimated thatgenealogy was the primarymotive for 58,000 (i.e. threepercent) of the 1.76 millionholiday visitors to Ireland in1992. These visitors with aninterest in tracing their rootsspent an estimated €20 mil-lion. Furthermore thesegenealogy-motivated visitorsonly accounted for 12 percent of visitors with Irishancestry (472,000) so there isa substantial untapped mar-ket for genealogy serviceseven among existing visitors.

Marketing StrategiesIf the success of IGP centres issimply to be ]udged by thenumber of visitors they getthen genealogy needs to'widen' its appeal. Most IGPcentres at present cater velymuch for the specialist, i.e.the dedicated family histo-rian. Asself-containedgenealogical research centreswith a nauow, specialisedbase, local IGP centres areunlikely to achieve realisticvisitor {igures. One solutionmight be to establish the'front office' operations of

GrnEArocYis it su$ainable?

3. Mid-nineteenth centuryGtitfith's Valuation)4. Early-nineteenth centwytithe applotment books;5. 1901 Census;6. Gravestone inscriptions.

It was also decided thateach area, usually a county(part of a county in the caseof Cork, Dublin, Galway,Mayo and Tipperary), wouldhave a designated IGP centre,in which all the relevant civiland church records for thatarea would be computedsed.These local centres wouldthen service any family his-tory queries which fell withintheir catchment aleas.

From a toudsm point ofview the 'piece de resistance'was the ultimate establish-ment of a sign posting or cen-tral referral index, whosepurpose would be to directvisitors to the appropdatelocal area. Not only wouldthe local economy benefit butthe toudst boards wouldhave a significant marketingtool (i.e. the sign postingindex) to deploy in their bidto attract more ethnic Irish toIreland.

PotentialThe potential is tremendous.According to the 1980 census,43 million Americans,approximately twenty per-cent of her population, are ofIrish descent. Five millionAustralians, or thirty percentof her population, can claimIrish ancestry. At a conserva-tive estimate there are ovelseven million people withIrish origins in Great Britain.

Bv

Bnrlr MlrcxeuGo.onorxaron oF TltE llxen Glw TRUsrts

Gerellocv Gexrne rrr DERRy

IGP centres alongside existingor new hedtage attractionswith crowd-pulling capacity.

The problem with this sce-nado, however, is the increas-ing unease about the viabilityof heritage attractions, andowing to EC structural fund-ing there has been a dramaticgrowth recently in heritageand cultural developments.A study by Tourism Develop-ment International, and pub-lished in an article entitled'The Heritage Industry:Money from our ancestors' inBusiness and Finnnce (13August 1992) demonstratedthat the Irish population istoo small to sustain the cur-rent number of fee-payingattractions. The difficulty forIreland is that there ale rela-tively few quality he tageattractions, and only 14reported more than 100,000visitors in 1991. Furthermorethe tourist season is sholtwith seventy percent of allcustomer visits occurringbetween June and September.

A Bord Failte survey car-ried out in 1990, furthermore,showed that in visitors'minds Ireland's scenery and.people lived up to theirexpectations but an under-standing of her heritage/cul-ture did not. There is,therefore, a poor awareness ofwhat Ireland has to offer inthe field of heritage attrac-tions.

According to the latest sur-vey canied oulby Caterer ondHotelkeeper , the leading maga-zine for the hospitality indus-try, peace would make 24 percent of Bdtons more likely tovisit Northern Ireland.Although seventy percent ofthese said the scenery andcountryside would attlactthem to Northern lreland, lessthan five percent said theywould be attracted by its his-todc sites.

The proposal published byHeritage Island 0uly 1992) tomarket heritage attractionsthroughout Ireland to inter-national tour operators con-tains some very interestingstatistics. In the Republic ofIreland overseas visitors toheritage attractions accountedfor 62 percent of admissionswhereas in Northern Irelandthey only accounted for 17percent.

Grant Aid EssentialQuite simply, in Northern Ire-land at present there is nei-ther the local population nor

27

Irish Roots 1996 Numher 3

holiday visitors to sustainhedtage centres. Such pro-jects are non-conunercial andneed the participation of pub-Iic bodies and grant assis-tance. For example, theannual report of the UlsterFolk and Transport Museumdemonstrates that fol the yearending 31 March 1993 it gen-erated a gross income of€2.689 million, of which 82.44million carne from Depart-ment of Education grants. Inother words this well-respected and popularmuseum only generated some9 per cent of its own revenue

Major Contributions of IGPIn sholt if a balance sheetanalysis of hedtage attrac-tions, and this includes IGPcentres, is seen as the onlyvalid means of assessing aproject's value then we mightas well stop what we aredoing! A commercialappraisal of IGP centres,however, overlooks a numberof major contuibutions - inthe fields of training,research, education andtourism - which are suffi-cient in themselves to iustifyall the work that is going o;.

In the field of training it isnow accepted that academicqualifications should not bethe sole measure of excel-lence. Vocational training inthe work situation is a validalternative. Partnershipsbetween the training agenciesand local commulities offergreat scope for meeting thechallenges of the modemworld. Indeed many ameni-ties/services, and thisincludes all IGP centres, havealready arisen as a result ofco-opelation between thetraining agencies and localcommunities. As tourismplays a maior role today inthe creation and maintenanceof loca1 employment, it makessense for the toudst boardsand training agencies to beco-operating in the setting upof community employmentand tourist venfures.

In the context of IGP cen-tres, providing a toudsm ser-vice function such as training,data inputting, validation,and even client reports are'back office' operations thatcan go on anywhere indepen-dentlv of visitors- Tt is pssen-dal td the ultimate succeds ofthe IGP that the trainingagencies see'value' in contin-uing to fund local centresthrough their training and

employment programmes.IGP centres, furthelmore,

play an important role in thetourism infomation networkin terms of directing visitorsto the homelands of theirancestors. In is quite fte-quently the ddving forceamong many family histod-ans to identify the areas theirancestors lived in, and to findout something about the his-tory of the area and its peo-ple. Even the straightforwardidentification of an ancestor'splace of residence on a mapcan make a visitor's holidayan unforgettable experience.

Many centres have alsoestablished themselves, basedon their rich local heritage, asmajor reseaich institutions.In addition to undertakingmajor indexation proiects forthe major religious denomi-nations and for the RegistrarGeneral, many centres havegained well-eamed reputa-tions for the quality of theirpublications. For exampleDerry's Genealogy Centre hasproduced 15 publications todate, seven of which werepublished in the US. Publica-tions produced by IGP cen-tres can be found in manyreference libraries acrossAmerica and Australia.

The contdbution of localcentres in the field of childand adult education shouldnot be underestimated. Staffftom centres have assistedwith school project work,held workshops on tracingfamily history, given talks tofamily history groups bothwithin and outside Ireland,and provided lecture input touniversity courses.

I do feel tiere is a danger ofthrowing out the baby withthe bath water, of beingforced down the. route ofoved commercialisation atthe expense of a quality ser-vice which benefits both thelocal community and tourismprovision.

Attracting VisitorsFrom a tourism point of viewI increasingly see the role ofgenealogy as the means totianslate an interest in Irelandinto a desire to travel here.For example, in its presenta-tion literature to 'Cruise Lon-dondery Polt', Derry CityCouncil and LondonderryPort and Harbour Commis-sioners included genealogy aspart of its package, simplystating:'A computedsedsystem has been established

to assist you trace your roots.Your family history can beresearched and prepared foryou in advance of yourarrival in Derry.' One greatadvantage of compiling suchreports in advance of a trip toIreland is that they will becompiled in the off-seasonperiod.

There is great scope for theIGP to link up with tour oper-ators throughout USA,Canada, Australia, NewZealand and Britain to offer'valueadded' holidays. Theaim of such a link up shouldbe to provide the prospectiveholiday maker with a relevantinformation/research pack-age on their particular familyhistory before they board theplane to Ireland. Thus aclient walking into a travelagent to book a holiday to Ire-land should be given theoption to commissionresealch into thetu family his-tory.

Not Yet MarketableBefore genealogy centres candeliver packages that willentice tour operators to takethem seriously, they will needto be able to delivel an all-Ire-land genealogy product and,most importantly, have onepoint of contact. This 'signposting' centre will not onlynegotiate on behalf of localcentres but also act, and bemarketed as such, as the pointof contact for individualswith an interest in family his-tory. This centre will be ableto offer assessments (for afee), redirect queries to therelevant local centre, and actas negotiator and promoter ofIGP services.

Owing to its slowness insetting standard pricing andselvice structures, Irishgenealogy has had difficultiesin establishing itself as a qual-ity service. The genealogyproduct is not yet 'branded'in the eyes of the public. Thismust be put in place befoieany comprehensive market-ing campaign is considered.

Furthermore, owing to freeaccess to many Irishgenealogical sources inlibraries overseas, and to thenatural desile of people totrace their own family his-tory, 'branding' becomes all-important in any attempts toposition IGP centres as offer-ing a good 'value for money'service.

In additiory owing to thescale of the task it has set

itself it will be another threeyears at least before local cen-tres will have completed theirlocal databases. Unless yousee at first hand the scale ofinlormation to be inputted,the time spent just in seekingpermissions to computedsesources (especially churchregisters), and the degree ofcare that is required ininputting hand-writtenrecords, it is hard to imaginethe complexity in creating anall-Ireland genealogicaldatabase.

Until these issues are tack-led and the public can bepromised an all-Irelandgenealogy product there is lit-tle point in launching, on alarge scale, any solt of co-ordinated marketing cam-paign which would benecessary to generate newbusiness.

Owing to the si8nificantrole played by genealogy inattracting overseas visitors toIreland, and owing to thecomrnercial failure of heritageattractions to generate realis-tic revenues I would see theideal location for the 'servicefunctions' of IGP centres asbeing within the network oftourist information centres.Once the local databases arecompleted it will be relativelyinexpensive to service thedatabase in terms of man-power and equipment.

This does not mean thatIGP centres should not chargerealistic fees for commis-sioned research or develop arange oI ancillary productssuch as sumame scrolls,heraldic shields etc. Indeedthey should charge for theirservices, and any money gen-erated should be ploughedback into the tourist informa-tion network.

The FutureWithin the next 3-5 yearsthere will be established anall-Ireland genealogical prod-uct which will be unrivalledanywhere in the world. Andof even greater significance,once established, the IGPdatabase and network ofexperienced genealogists willhelp futule generations tracetheir ancestry, and drawmore and more loots visitorsto lreland. In communitydevelopment, education andresearch, if not to the balancesheet, the network of geneal-ogy centres throughout Ire-land are very sustainable.

28

1997 Nutnber 1Irish Roots

GenEALoGY in lneunoby

Tne Furune or

felt like DorothY inthe Wizard of Ozwhen the editor of

lrish Roots called andasked me to write anarticle from the Amer-ican perspective aboutthe future of Irishgenealogy. Wouldn'tit be wonderful if Icould click the heelsof her ruby red shoes(or in my case service-able navy blue loafers)together-and make ofgenealogy in Ireland aland of Oz.

Since the late 1960s I havebeen to lreland over a dozentimes researching both mYown Irish ancestiv and that ofothers. I have abb gone toEngland, Scotland, Canadaand several states within mvown countrv on researchexpeditionsl It is difficult notto compare how thlngs are mAmedca and other countrieswith how things are in lre-land. Added to that is mYwork as a British Referenceconsultant in what is seen as

the Mecca of genealogy, theFamity History LibrarY (here-after ieferred io as FHL) inSatt Lake City. But since mYassignment is to exPress thehopes, even dreams, I havefor genealogy in Ireland, it isimpossible not to comPare.For out of the comparisoncomes the hopes and dreams Iharbour for tire future oI Irishgenealogy.

Recent lmplovementsBefore I start with mY wishlist, let me express the excite-ment I feel over the changesthat have been made in Ire-land since my earlier tdPS.First is the modernisation ofthe eouipment. The earlierantiqiaied fitm readers Iused, if they were even work-ing (and miny did not), at theNitional Librarv have been

Juorn Eccus Wlcnr A.G.

Our series on the future of lrish Geneal-oov continues in 1997' This Year'o6irealoqists who reside outside lrelandire beinb given the opportunity to

.

exoress lh-eir views. The first article iswritten bv Judith Eccles Wight of theFamily History Library, Salt Lake City,

Utah,'USA. She has personal experi-ence of the lrish genealogical scdne'having visited lreland fourleen times'

reDlaced witha more modern iournals l am particula-rly

"i[i"-". n"J*""aer o[ won- impressed with-the pJofes-

ders,ihe National Archives sionalism ol c'lzt'y Koots

no*'f'ru" i"ua"t-ptint"o lclanna nq Cailitthe)' the four-*h"r" on"

"uo Ubttl t"t"ut.h nal of the Calway Family His-

and Drint out material on a tory society' thdt ls Pllbllsneqsing,ie machine. by the FAS I raining lto)ect

and funded bY the local com-

The nalional and local reposi- munity and other organisa-torjes that I have visited over tions- Notonly are FAS

ihe vears have come a long trainees used to Produce

-rti to*a.a being 'user indexe for the Galway Fam-

iiiJnJlv'. It is no"w possible ily History Society west Her-

for a researcher to personalJy itage Centre, but thgy are also

access filmed churih records involved in the Productlon ol

at PRONI. For one who is the ioumal'used to the open sheu Policy- .ir".t Jrn! eul und hut"r Wish Listto queue, that's a time saving Yes, a number of significantimJrovement. PRONIalso chanqes have taken place inrecentlv developed a fun and the wbrld of genealogy in lre-instruciive inteiactive com- land, but much more needs toDuter DroP.ramme Lhat intro- bedone Sonowtothewishbuces'the"repository and its list or hoPes I have for thecollection Lothe publi(. The future of genealogy in Ire-oroeramme also outlines the Iand.Loais of PRONI (in the form3f a mission statement) and oPf,\l\G HouRs

;ives instructions on how to If the various archives are

irake a complaint if the ser- committed to being morevice is inaddouate. Thecom- 'user friend ly', T would like to

orrter aee has'also resulted in see them e\lend the hours

Loiia-i,la" u.."tt to informa- lhattheyareoPen The-

tion from various lrish rePosi- National I ibrary has a ile\l-Lories includjns the heritage ble schedule which includes

"""t "r. i"o".i"ttv exciLin"g is some evening hours as well

theabilitvLodod;earchof a as being oPen on Saturday -

data basdheld by the National mornings l realise thdt bud-

Archives via the Internet. gel constralnts mdy maKel=oneer oPening hours imPos-

More and more counties in sib[, bui a fleiible schedule-lreland are starting up local does allow people more readyeenealoeical or hi;torical soci- access to the national andEties anJ publfuhing annual local repositories.

INTER-LIBRARY LOANS

If the hours that a rePositoryis oDen cannot be adjusted tome6t the needs of thi: Public,it would be nice if an inter-librarv loan service could beimole'mented and extended tocorintries outside of IrelandSome vears ago the universitylibrarrl l use i"n Utah was ableto boiow filmed churchrecords for New Brunswickfrom a Canadian rePositorythroush the inter-library loansysteri. I have also been ableto access lilmed newsPaPercollections, coPies of articlesfrom periodicals, and evenbooks from other recordrepositories via inter-librarYIoin. What a helP this is tome in mv research NoL onlyam I abl6 to access lecolds ata reasonable cost (Postage

and/or photocoPY exPense),but I am able to do theresearch at a rePository closeto my home and at a timeconvenient to me.

PHOTO-COPYING ACCESS

And if the Irish rePositoriesare committed to being more'user ftiendlv', it would alsobe nice if seli-service Photo-duDlication machines wereav;ilable. Some, but not all,of the repositories have suchequipmdnt. I realise thatthese machines are expenslve,but it certainly is more costeffective tharrusing the lim-ited staff of the rePositories toprovide that service Plus takeiare of posting the Photo-copied matedal

OPEN.SHELF ACCESS

I've learned ftom exPedencethat about a third of mYresearch time in lrelanil (and

the same can be said o{ otherreDositories I've visited in theBr'itish Isles, Canada andAmerica) is wasted because Ihave to wait for records to be

retdeved and then brought tome. If record rePositoies hadopen shelving, or at least Par-ri:llv as is th; filmed churchrec&d collection at PRONI, Iwould be able to better utilisemy time. OPen shelving isnot always Possible because

10


of the nature of the docu-ments. However, if therecords were preserved onmicrofilm or microfiche ormade available in a comput-erised format such as the Pio-neer lndexes to Australianvital records on CD-ROM,open shelving would be pos-sible.

RECORD PRESERVATIONIlecord pleservation is amajor concern that needs tobe addressed immediately inIreland as well as in othercountdes. The ScottishRecord Office in Edinburghand the district archivesthroughout that country arerunning out of room. If therecords were filmed, fiched orcomputerised (scanners makethis a relatively easy process),not only would the odginaldocuments be permanentlypreserved and demands onstaff be reduced, but a greatdeal of room could be savedin stodng records that areused extensively by the pub-lic. A couple ofyears ago thecivil registration records ofthe Cook Islands weredestroyed by arson. Becausethe Genealogical Society ofUtah had previously micro-filmed the original docu-ments, the destroyed recordswere replaced with a filmcopy. In 1922 an irreplaceablebody of records wasdestroyed in Ireland. Couldit not happen again, and whatprovisions are being taken tosafeguard the records?

VOLUNTARY WORKVolunteers fill a critical needin many areas. The familyhistory centres (branches ofthe FHL) throughout theworld could not provide theservice that they do to thegenealogical community wereit not for the volunteers. Vol-unteers in the family historysocieties in England areactively engaged in indexingmarriage recotds, monumen-tal inscriptions, censusreturns and other records.The information from theindexes is made available at avery reasonable fee. Volun-teers could undoubtedly beutilised.in similar ways at thevarious national and localTrish repositories and throughtheir local historical orgenealogical societies.

IGP REFORMMost of the indexing that isbeing done in Ireland is done

by the county heritage cen-tres. Their records are notopen to the public and, insome cases, church recordsthat they have indexed arenot available for inspection atnational repositories. The feecharged by many of the cen-tres is often beyond the finan-

cial means of the people theyhope to serve. Too, the ser-vice provided is not alwaysthe best or the most timely.For example, I waited almosttwo years for informationfrom one centre although theparish I requested besearched was one that hadbeen indexed at the time Iwrote. It wasn't until I com-plained and demanded arefund of my money that theypromptly supplied me withthe information.

More recently, I wrote toanother county-based IGPcentre and asked if they hadgathered information fromtombstone inscdptions. Iwanted a search made oftombstone insc ptions of aspecific Church of Irelandburial ground for a specificsuname but no otherresearch done. I m not even

sure they read my letter asthe reply I got back was thestandard form to fill out and alist of the services theyoffered and the records thathave been indexed. A shortletter was included telling methat I would need to send €25for a survey. A search would

be made of all indexedrecords (with the exception ofthe tombstone inscdptions,nothing else was needed sinceI had checked the pertinentsources at the FHL and knewthat the church records weredestroyed) for that fee. Ifthey found anything pertain-ing to the surname in ques-tion, I would be informed andwould then have to send €75more for the details. Whywould I want to spend €100(or approximately US$170)for a list of tombstone inscrip-tions?

I've heard similar complaintsfrom other people who haveused the services of the her-itage centres. If one of theideas behind the indexing ofrecords is to boost the Idsheconomy through toudsm,the heritage centres and thetourism hdustry would be

better served by making therecords available to the publicat no fee or a reasonable fee.This would do more to pro-mote tou sm among thethousands of people who aresearching for their Idsh rootsand thus b ng more visitorsto Ireland.

One only needs to look at thepopulation served by the FHLto prove the point. Groupsfrom all over the world cometo Salt Lake City to use ourfacility. Family Tree, themost widely read genealogi-cal periodical in England,sponsors almost annually atdp to the FHL. Because it iseasier for people in Englandto do English research at theFHL, rheie trips are generallywell attended. Tourism isone of the main contributorsto Utah's economy.

It was suggested to me by afriend that the heritage cen-tres could provide a uniqueconsultation service for theirown areas. Who better to askfor a guided tour to a localtowniand or burial groundthan people who live andwork in that area? And bythe very nature of thefu work,the employees at the centresought to be able to giveadvice as to records to searchthat are unique to that area.

GUIDES TO LOCAL REPOSITORIES

Of those people searching forthei Irish roots, many wantto do their own research.There are a number of booksthat provide detailed infor-mation about tracing Idshfamilies using various recordsources, but not always dolocal repositories provideinformation dealing withtheir collections. PRONI hasrecently started publishingself helps. These mainly onepage instructional aids detailvarious holdings at thatrepository. I would like tosee similar aids in otherrepositories in Ireland.

CO-OPERATIONFinally, I would like to see co-operation between thegenealogical communitiesthroughout the world. Vol-Inteers from the localEnglish, Welsh and Scottishfamily history societies andftom people associated withthe Family History Libraryand its centres in the BitishIsles developed a series ofindexes for the 1881 census ofthose countdes. Canadian

l1

Irish Roots 1997 Nurnber 1

Linda Meehan single hand-edly (at least as of this writ-ing) is producing acounty-by-county every nameindex to the 1901 census ofIreland. Wouldn't it be won-derful if members of the localIrish societies or of the profes-sional genealogical commu-nity there were to volunteertheir services. Through suchco-operation everyone bene-fits.

Dr Donlon's PIansAs I stated at the beginning ofthis article, I am very muchexcited by the changes that Ihave seen happen over theyears in Irish genealogy. Butthere is room for improve-ment. I write this ftom theperspective of a spoiledAmerican who has readyaccess to so much informa-tion. I would like to be able

Chairman of IGRS Responds

fAM SURE that we could all argue til the cows come home aboulIthe role of the lrish Genealogical Research Sociely both withinand without the island of Ireland, and we could go on scoring pointsoff each other, but it would do precious little good to the interests ofIrish Genealogy. Nonetheless, I am bounden to reply to some ofthepoints made by Paul Gorry in the last issue of lrish Roots,

Fi$t, I welcome Paul's reasoned critique on the future of genealogyin Ireland, as indeed I have welcomed his many and variedcontributions over the years, but if Paul is concemed that our Soci-ety is not as well run as he would like, then the remedy is in his ownhands.

He is a member of the lreland Branch, fully entitled to attend meet-ings, propose motions, etc. If he is unhappy about some aspect ofbranch management, then his first course is to bring his concerns tothe attention of the duly elected branch committee, and ifhe is stil1not satisfied, to the Society's governing body, the Council.

No society such as ours is so perfect that it cannot be improved, andwe welcome suggestions to that end. But for Paul to state unequiv-ocally that our society is 'most definitely' not democratic is a mostserious allegation, implying at the very least dereliction of duty bymembers of the goveming body, who are in law the trustees ofa reg-istered charity, and who face considerable penalties if such derelic-tion is proven.

Paul also questions the 'conspicuous silence' of the IGRS Council(in London) on the subject of the future of the Genealogical Office(in Dublin), and blames such silence on our 'politeness'. Heisright,though I find it strange that such cdurtesy on our part should now beregarded with ajaundiced eye.

Finally, Paul says that in my Open Letter to lrirl, Rooti (No. 2, 1996)I claimed that the IGRS 'belonged to London'. I did not, and it doesnot, any morc than I, who live and work in London, 'belong to Lon-don'.

I said that the Society was founded in London, which is an histo calfact, however unpalatable to those who are mistakenly calling for its'repatriation' to Ireland. I also made it very clear that the IGRS isintemational, a fact with which Paul, I am glad to say, agrees.

Paul says that he was 'absolutely incensed' by my Open Letter. I amsorry that was his reaction, because my concem was notto fan flames,but to put the record straight following the fi$t article in the sedesThe Future of lrish Cenealogy.

I believe and hope that Irish genealogyhas, in fact, a great future beforeit, both for fhe professionals, like Paul Gony, and also for the manythousands ofamateurs, who in the true sense ofthe oft-misused word,are involved for the love ofit. After all, without the interest engen-dered by amateun world-wide, there would be precious little workfor the professionals. Let us work together for that futue.

Youls sincerely,Robin McNee Findlay,Chairman of the CouncilIdsh Genealogical Research Society,82 Eaton Square, London.

t2

to do the same kind ofresearch in Ireland with theease that I have in America.Some of my dreams willremain dreams because of theeconomic situation. How-ever, the far reaching plansIor the National Library ofIreland detailed by Dr Patd-cia Donlon in the previousissue of lrisft Roots (see 'TheFuture of Irish Genealogy')

NoRrH oF lneuro FHST'l eaders will olease noteI\thut uu.or.i"pond"r,""should be addressed to: theSecretary, North of IrelandFamily History Society, c,/oQueen's University School ofEducation, 69 UniversityStreet, Belfast BTZ 1HL,Nodhern Ireland - not toindividuals at their homeaddress as inadvertentlygiven in lrish Roofs No. 4,-t996.

'Our journal, Norlft IrisftRoots, V ol. 7, No. 2, 1996,which was delayed, camefrorn the printer on January20 and copies were dis-patched to all associate mem-bers and societies thefollowing day.

The new Coleraine Branchmeeting of 26 November waswell attended with over 40members present to hear MrRandal Gill speak on 'TracingFamily History'. Decembersaw Christmas socialevenings in the differentbranches.

The Society's AGM is to behosted by our LisburnBranch on Saturday 24 May1997, with coffee and regis-tration at 10.30 am at the Lis-burn Linen Museum,followed by a conducted tourof the Museum and a visit toits Archives Library. Aftellunch break, we will gatherat 2.30 pm for the AGMproper in the Bridge Com-munity Centre, RailwayStreet when addresses andreports from all branches willbe given. The Society's book-stall will be open for businessduring the aftemoon teainterval.

The Belfast Branch summerouting is planned for Satur-day 21 June with a visit to theMoravian Settlement at

give me hope that things willcontinue to improve.Although Dr Donlon had tostep down from her positionas director of the NationalLibrary, I trust that the hopesand dreams she expressed forthe future of Irish genealogywill be implemented, for theyare mine as well, for not onlythat repository but othersthroughout Ireland.

Gracehill near Ballymena,County Antrim, founded in't757.

RANDAL GILL

BALLINTEER FHS

/.\ver the past year, a wide\-,fprogramme of interest-ing lectures was delivered toa regular average attendanceof about thirty per meeting.Included in the 1996 pro-gramme were lectufes pre-iented by Ms Eithne Mulhall,APGI, on the Mormonrecords; Professor DavidDoyle on Irish emigration tothe USA; Mr Rob Goodbodyon the records of the Quakersand their contdbution tofamine relief; Ms Liz Canollon the Dublin Heritagerecords; Mr Cormac Behanon the famine and the Free-man's lournaL latnes Scannellon an aspect of the RathdownUnion.

The 1997 prograrnme com-menced with a workshop onThursday 16 January forthose who had no idea whereor how to commence theresearch of the history oftheir family. This was con-ducted by Ms MuireannMurray-Lynch and Ms Eliza-beth Ryan. For those begin-ners a stader pack isprovided at a nominal costand this provides them withpointerc/ideas as to how andwhere to commence withtheir research.

The following lectures areplanned: 20 March - ThePlantation of Ulster by EndaLee; 17 April - They haveFooled you Again (the storyof Fr Ml O'Flanagan) by DrDennis Carroll; 15 May: TheIrish Emigration to Canadaby Aidan O'Hara.

The Society publishes ajournal entitled GafeTaay to the

T


Ger,lEALoGY in lneuaNDby

Tne Furune or

Yn 1990 I made mv firstI frustrating atterript to

Iunderstand ihe IGPand what it was trying todo. Despite knowingsome of the principalplayers I was, and stillam to some extent,treated like a leper seek-ing a secret cure. Themalaise was that I under-stood genealogy in Aus-tralia and the needs ofthis group of researchers.I had worked as a profes-sional genealogist, at thatstage for over ten years,and wanted to tap intothe Bord F6i1te 'touristproduct' to give people'value added' holidays toIreland. I was ignoredbecause in relative num-bers, Australians werefew and they came to Ire-land anyway to see the

' scenery and to stand onthe spot of their ances-tors. It did not matter totourism if it was thewrong spot because BordFAilte got their touristanyway and thereforewere happy.

This may seem a very cynical view of the tourism-genealogy combination butit is founded on some verystrong evidence fromgenealogists here in Aus-iralia- Since the earlv 1990s Ihave been acutely aware ofgrowing dissatisfactionamong the genealogicalmovement in Australia withthe 'antics of the Irish'.Unfortunately genealogy inIreland is increasing viewedas the ultimate Irish joke.Let me discuss somespecifics. In 1993 and 1994,through Descert, the journalof the Society of AustralianGenealogists, I asked Aus-tralian researchers to writeto me with their comments

Pennv G. Mclurvne

This series continues with an article onthe Australian perspective on lrishgenealogy. The author is a professionalgenealogist residing in Mosman, NewSouth W-ales. She is on the Council ofthe Society of Australian Genealogistsand has completed a master's thesis onpre-Famine immigration to Australiafrom lreland.

and experiences withresearch from Ireland. Ireceived many specific com-plaints, mainly about Her-itage Centres. Many of thecomplaints were becausethe researchers did notunderstand the 'terms ofreference' of the Centres inthe first place and I thinkthis is still the case. Whileat the local level there ismuch progress as centresare continuing to inPut civiland parish records, muchmore needs to be done instandardising proceduresAs far as progress regardingthe establishment and mar-keting of an all-Irelandgenealogical product is con-cerned nothing seems tohave changed very muchsince the early years of theproiect.

Despite the massive amountof money going into ICPand the heritage Product,much of the material nowreadily available to genealo-gists interested in Trishrecords is from work donebv dedicated individuals orsfia11er organisations. Ini-tially Brian Cantwell, morerecently the magnificentwork of UHF with the Ord-nance Survey Memoirs andfor many yeirs the work ofBrian Mitchell in Derry.However, work is increas-ingly being undertaLen out-side Ireland: Largy Books inCanada have done a mag-nificent job indexing the1901 Ceirsus for Fermanagh,and are working on CountyDonegal; the Royal IrishConstabularv records andthe OLd Age'Pension Claimrecords have been irrdexedin Australia; tl.re spinningwheel survey in Americaand the list continues toerow. Il makes us wonder)Yvhat is going on in Iretandy'

Brian Mitchell, who hasworked diligently on Pro-jects and knows genealogY,

l


was the wrong spot...

education and tourism, con-tinues his great work fromDeny which he has donesince before the IrishGenealogical Project waseven mooted. His expertiseand dedication has pro-duced an enormous amountof material and he alone hasdone more to promotegenealogy in Ireland thanany other individual. Yet,Bdan is not frightened toquestion the direction ofgenealogy in Ireland. Seethe article in Irlslz Roofs,1996, Number 4.

To be fair, Australians AREoften the malcontents ofIrish genealogy because weare spoilt. Spoilt because ofthe availability of detailedrecords in Australia. Com-pared to the poor shippingrecords and civil registrationrecords in American, Aus-tralians are unique amongthe Irish Diaspora becausewe frequently know theparish or townland of ourancestor. Forget for the sakeof this argument that we stilldo not have a clue howlucky we are or what atownland is and what itmeans to know it!!

It is up to those involved ingenealogy in Ireland andAustralia to let people knowwhat is or is not availablebeyond what they can do athome. More than basicgenealogical expertise isneeded if these people are to

It did not matter to tourism if it))

over two and a half yearsago is still waiting for areply.

What I am trying to illus-trate is that we all need to beeducated about how thesystem works, both in lre-land and Australia and thatIreland has done a particu-larly poor job of letting theinternational genealogicalpublic know the lay of theland. This point is broughtout by Brian Mitchell's lris,rtRoofs article [1996, Number3l where he says that a BordF6ilte survey carried out in1990 showed, 'that in visi-tors' minds Ireland's sceneryand people lived up to theirexpectations but an under-standing of her heritage,/cul-ture did not'. I am not surethat 'Riverdance' will helpdispel the myth!

visit Ireland and find some- New South Wales [reposi- in lreland will kill the goosething more there. Part of the tory of NSW State Govern- that laid the golden egg forwhole problem is a lack of ment records and those of that area of toudsm l4any

.undersianding. I continu- the early colonyl. He was of you know that Dr Richardally find that Australians diligentiy working away on Reid, himself an lrishmanassume that a Heritage Cen some original correspori- with considerable experi-tre is a place rather like a dence. Not unusual but, ence in the histodcal andlocal studies library where knowins the situation with

fil?f$',.jlJ:i:Ti#tJ"o(( !:*9il,.xrui$t'. . . AUStfalians. . . Came tO Ifgland These are the educated and

sympathetic people and

anyway ro see the scenery and to :'#;:"I"JiiT5i,liJ"- sioned with Irish genealogy.

stand on the spot of their ancestors. ?ti#Tfil#,i:r:X'S,,"

they will be allowed to goand conduct research fortheir family histories. Afterall they have paid a consid-erable amount of money tocome to Ireland and cannotunderstand why the doors ofplaces which hold clues totheir ancestors remainclosed to them. They haveno understanding that theyare meant to pay a fee, gohome and perhaps be postedthe results of some research.

Only this week - IrishWeek T ran into a wellknown Irish historian work-ing in the Archives Office of

copying in Ireland, I men-tioned to him that for 40c apage he could have it copiedon the spot. As I suspected,he was amazed to be able tohave these original recordscopied. The system at theNational Archives and theNational Library in Dublin isstill very quaint andextremely frustrating butcompared to when I firstcame to Ireland in the mid-1980s it is a lot better.

Brian Mitchell talks of thedanger of throwing the babyout with the bath water- Mygreat fear is that genealogy

23

Irish Roots 1996 Number I

fflhere is no doubt that Irish genealogy has

I changed greatly since the gentlemanly days oiI pnirii ooyne Vigors and the Memorials Asso-

ciation, just over a century ago. But remarkably, themost dramatic changes came about in the last twodecades. When I started work in the field seventbenyears ago I was aware of the Genealogical Office,the Ulster Historical Foundation and the IrishGenealogical Research Society, but there were noother institutions or organisations visible. DonalBegley's Handbook on lrish Genealogy was theonly guidebook on sale in book shops. As a hobby,genealogy was decidedly a rare pursuit within Ire-land and as a career it was an oddity. This was notan area that held any interest for the government.New DevelopmentsThe rapid change began in theearly 1980s and it was notbrcught about by the people,professional or amateur, alreadyworking in genealogy, but bypeople new to the fleld. It was,perhaps, an accident of historythat caused it. Following theRepublic joining the EuropeanEconomic Community (now theEuropean Union) in 1973, fundsbecame available for short-termyouth employment/trainingschemes. In the late 1970s thehigh unemployment rate in thecountry encouraged the devel-opment of such schemes. Theywere to be run under the aus-pices of local committees withthe work conducted by super-vised trainees. As theseschemes could be used forjustabout any community develop-ment work, local history soci-eties began to see their potentialas hedtage projects.

One of the first and most suc-cessful uses of such schemeswas in Roscrea, where GeorgeCunningham spearheaded the.preservation of Damer Houseand the flowering of archaeo-logical and historical pro-grammes. The work of people

like George Cunningham wasmade known to groups in otherparts of the country through theFederation of Local HistorySocieties. Of locally held his-torical records. the mostwidesprcad and accessible werechurch registers. This is whyindexing of registers swiftlydeveloped in the early 1980s.

Being involved with the westWicklow Historical Society, Icame in contact with the idea ofindexing through the Federa-tion, and persuaded the societyto sponsor such a project. In1985 I spent six months work-ing as supervisor of the index-ing scheme in Baltinglass,covering church records andgravestone inscriptions. At thebeginning of that period I wasput in touch with MichaelByrne of the Offaly HistoricalSociety who was Secretary ofthe newly formed Irish FamilyHistory Society. The IFHS hadbeen founded in September1984 by people representing thevarious bodies indexing churchrecords and it was, in essence,an umbrella group for indexingcentres, but it was also a mem-bership organisation.

Origins ofIFHSThe IFHS was the first associa-tion Lo rcpresent indexing bod-ies collectively, but churchregister indexing was by 1984already well under way in vari-ous parts of the country. Theman now seen as the pioneer ofthis development was Ignatius'Naoise' Cleary of Corofin,County Clare. He was a schoolteacher who indexed CorofinRoman Catholic parish registercin his sparc time. In 1976 thelocal development associationwas given the old Church ofheland church by the Represen-tative Church Body and, withMr Cleary's encouragement, setup a museum and an indexingscheme. The Clare HeritageCentre is now twenty years oldand has long been regarded as

the flagship of indexing pro-jects. By 1985 indexing wasbeing carried out in Carlow,Leitrim, Monaghan, Roscom-mon, Tipperary, Waterford andWestmeath as well as in Clareand Offaly, and some of therecords were already beingcomputerised.

Similar developments werebeginning in Northern Ireland,with a youth employmentscheme being used to index thepadsh registers of ArmaghRoman Catholic archdiocese.

Indexing Centres v Profes-sional GenealogistsOnce work was completed onthe registers, the indexes wereretained by the heritage groups.They viewed them as a resourcewith which to generate incomeby providing a research service.They set about getting furthergovenment funding for thispurpose. Being locally basedand spread throughout the coun-try, they were well placed tocommand political attention.Genealogy was now a subject ofinferest to the government,mainly due to its link with community development and theprospect ofexploiting it as baitfor tourists. The people behindthe indexing projects did not, byand large, have any priorinvolvement in the area. Manyof them were unawarc of thesmall but long establishedgenealogical community, cen-tred mainly on Dublin andBelfast, and saw genealogy as anew frontier. When it becameapparent that the indexing cen-tres were to develop a commer-cial research service,professional genealogistsbecame concerned about theirfufure.

A mutual disrust, fuelled bylack of contact, caused years ofthinly concealed antipathybetween the two grcups whichhas only in recent times beendispelled. Ironically, theappearance on the scene ofthese new heritage centres wasone of the reasons that profes-sional genealogists finally cametogether as a body to form theAssociation of ProfessionalGenealogists in lreland. APGIhas been in operation since1987 and has set standards toprotect both its members andtheir clients. It is open to thoseengaged in professionalresearch either in the Republicor in Northem lreland whosework is passed by a panel ofindependent assessors.

Discussions between govern-ment officials and representa-tives of heritage centres and ofprofessional genealogists as tohow a comprehensive genealogical service could be providedhave been on-going for almost adecade. In the meantime. theconcept of an all-embracing ser-vice has gone through variousstages of metamorphosis andchanges of name, giving theimpression that Irish genealogyis crowded with organisations.In 1989 the IFHS shed itsresponsibility as umbrella groupfor the centres and assumed itspresent role of membershipsociety. In its place, the lrishFamily History Co-operativebecame the representative bodyfor the centres but it laterchanged its name to the IFHFoundation. The lrishGenealogical Prcject (IGP) wasthe name given to the proposedall-embracing service and toimpl€ment it the various inter-ested parties, the Foundation,APGI and government officialsfrom both the Republic andNorthern lreland, we.e broughttogether as lrish Genealogy Ltd.(IGL). The future of IGL andof the IGP is at present uncer-tain It is sfill under discussion.

Facilities for AmateurGenealogistsThe changes in Irish genealogyover the last two decades arenot all to do with the commer-cial side of the subject, but it isdifficult to tell whether they areentirely unconnected. If youwanted to ioin a society in lre ]land up to the end of the 1970s, /your choice was limited to theIrish Genealogical ResearchSociety. Though it was basedin London, there were twomeetings a year in Dublin.

20

Irish Roots 1996 Number IThe first regional membershiporganisation to appear was theNorth of Ireland Family HistorySociety. It was founded in 1979and its quarterly joumal, Norrft1/is, Root,r has been regularlyproduced since 1984. In the1980s the IGRS Ireland Branchbegan and, along with the IFHS,came the Raheny Heritage Soci-ety, the Wexford FHS and theIrish Section of the HuguenotSociety. They were followed inthe 1990s by the Dun Laogh-aire. Cork and Wicklow Genea-logical Societies, the BallinteerBranch of the IFHS and theIrish Palatine Association.

One of the major problems forpeople beginning to researchtheir family history in Irelandwas, until recently, the lack ofguidance. This, of course,applied to those who wanted topursue it as a hobby, but also tothose who thought of making ittheir career unless they wereIucky enough, like me, to betaken on by the GenealogicalOffice beforc it discontinued itsresearch panel. You could:jointhe IGRS and buy the l1ard-boa,t but after that you werc onyour own. The first nightclasses in genealogy were givenby the then Chief Herald, Ger-ard Slevin, in Newpark Com-prehensive School in Dublin aspart of their adult educationprogramme in the late 1970s.These were later given for atime by Thomas McNally, thenby me, by Mr Slevin again andby Eilish Ellis. Various otherschools began similar coursesand a phenomenal number ofbeginners have been introducedto genealogy in this way. Themost popular of these is nowthat taught by Sean Murphy atUniversity College Dublin.This course offem an extra-mural certificate.

PublicationsThe publication of 1/is,Genealogy: A Record FinderbyHeraldic Artists in l98l was awelcome step to makingresearch more accessible to thegrowing number of enthusiastsboth within Ireland and over-seas. At least four other guide-books were published between1986 and 1989, most notablyJames Ryan's 1riJft Records.'Sources for Family & LocalHl,rtory. Between 1990 and1992 a further five titlesappeared. These included 7ieIrish Roots Guide by Tonyi|4ccatthy, Tracik+ Your IrishAncestors - The CompleteGzide by John Grenham and All

Introductk)n to lrish Researchby Bill Davis.

The first magazine published inIreland dealing with genealogywas Fomily Links Past and Pre-ren / which Kathleen Neillbegan in Belfast in 1981. Itcontinued as lrisi Family Linksand finally as Irish HeritageLirtr up to the early 1990s.The first issue of /ris, Rools.edited by Tony Mccarthy andpublished in Cork, appeared inMarch 1992 and it has becomean important channel of com-munication for lrish genealo-gists world-wide.

It is, perhaps, a poor reflectionon Ireland that the most signifi-cant research aids published inthe past fifteen years were pro-duced overseas. All-IrelandHetrtage's Alphabetical Intlexand Andrew J. Moris' FrllName lndex. both to Gtiffith'sP rimary Valuation, co\ etingvarious counties, are a giantleap beyond the 'Index of Sur-names', but they were bothcompiled in the USA. Linda K-M€ehan'S 1901 lrish Ce sushrdexfor County Fennanagh 1s

similarly an impressive andinvaluable tool and it comesfrom Canada. Of the materialproduced in Ireland, the mostuseful have possibly been thevadous indexes and lists pub-lished in the Irish Genealogistby the archivists RaymondRefauss6 and Mary Clark.These have made the collec-tions held at the RepresentativeChurch Body Library andDublin City Archives muchmore readily accessible fo allgenealogists. Dr Refauss6 isalso responsible for the RCB'spublication in 1994 of the regis-ter of St Thomas' parish,Dublin, as the first of a pro-posed series.

ConferencesWhile genealogical confercnceswere faniiliar events in coun-tries like the USA for manyyears, the first of any note heldin lreland took place in 1985 inWaterford. Confluence'85,organised by a committee ledby Kevin Whelan, brought dele-gates from Canada to discussmigration from the south-east tothe Labrudor Coast. In 1987and 1989 Patrick Nolan andMary Flood ananged two IrishOrigins conferences for Aus-tralian visitors. Then inSeptember 1991 the First IrishCenealogical Congress tookplace at Trinity College,Dublin, attracting 400 delegatesfrom all over the world. Plan-ning for this event began in1989 and the organising com-mittee was druwn from the vari-ous strands within Idshgenealogy, professional andamateur, making it very much a

comtnunity effort. The SecondCongress was held in 1994,again at Trinity College, and theThird is planned for Maynoothtn 199'7 .

The Ulster Historical Founda-tion also held the first of itsElusive Irish Ancestor confer-ences in 1991. These are on asmaller scale than the Congressbut take place annually. The1995 event was held in threecentres, Belfast, Omagh andDerry. The IFHS's weekendseminar has become an annualfixture as well. It is aimedmore at people resident in Ire-land, though it also attractsoverseas delegates.

The FutureIt appears that accidents ofhis-tory are destined to shape thedevelopment of Irish genealogy.In 1992, shortly beforc calling a

general election, AlbertReynolds announced lhat theCeneral Register Office was tobe relocated in his constituency,far away from the other recordrepositories. The now populousgenealogical sector had the firstopportunity to flex its muscleand the various organisationscame together to form an ad hocGRO Users' Group. It was suc-cessful in having the facilitiesretained in Dublin while theGRO itself will move roRoscommon. Following onthat, most of the voluntaryorganisations represented in theUsers' Group decided to tbrm apermanent alliance and in 1994the Council of Irish Genealogi-cal Organisations (CIGO) wasformed. Just as the IFH Foun-dation serves the indexing cen-tres, CIGO is an umbrella groupfor membership organisations.

Now that the 'boomtown' qual-ity of lrish genealogy in the1980s has mellowed into a moremature and cohesive unit in the1990s, the image of Ireland asovertly exploiting genealogy fbrcommercial purposes will hope-fully fade. Anthony Camp,Director of the Society ofGenealogists in London, haslong been critical of this aspectof Irish genealogy, and quiterightly so. His remarks merelyreflect the views of peoplearound the world who feel thatIreland is more interested intourism than in genealogy.

This series looked at the devel-opment of Irish genealogy, par-ticularly over the past century.People like Philip Doyne Vig-ors, Tenison Groves, GertrudeThrift, Philip Crossle, T USadleir, Wallace Clare, BerylPhair. Ned Keane and Rose-mary ffolliott laid the founda-tions of what we have today.They had a passion for the sub-ject and they worked to developit, rot simply so that Irelandcould boost torlrism al the endof the twentieth century. IfIrish genealogy is to grow in amore structured way in thefuture than it has in the past twodecades. it will have to beremembered that it is not aboomtown, but a very old com-munity with old institutions anda history to be upheld.

Corr€ctionIn Part IV ofthis series a grem-lin assertedthat Eoin O'Maionyorce worked for the Genealog-ical Office. The word should,ofcource. have been llerel.

2l

"the future of irish genealogy" (1996-1997)

Documents

lrish genealogy

future of genealogy

luture of genealogy

topopularise genealogy

irish familvhistory

becausethe society

society wereand

study ofirish genealogy