by Paul Gorry | Jan 6, 2022 | Allihies, Beara Peninsula, Books, Castletownbere, Cork, Daphne du Maurier, Family History, Genealogy, Hungry Hill, Hungry Hill, Local History, Puxley Family, West Cork |
A few months ago I spent a weekend with friends on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. On our way from Glengarriff to Castletownbere we drove along the base of the bleak looking Hungry Hill. It’s the highest mountain on the peninsula. During our few days we visited...
by Paul Gorry | Dec 8, 2021 | 1916, Easter Rising, Family History, Genealogy, Kildare, Merrion Press, Rootsireland.ie, Seven Signatories, War of Independence |
The signing, a century ago this week, of the Anglo-Irish Treaty echoed the signing of another document five years earlier. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic was signed by seven men in Easter Week 1916. It was, in a sense, an ancestor of the Anglo-Irish Treaty....
by Paul Gorry | Nov 22, 2021 | Aloysius, Aloysius Gonzaga, Aloysius O'Kelly, Forenames, James Joyce, John A Costello, Roman Catholics |
My second forename is Aloysius. Throughout my childhood, youth and middle age I kept it hidden from most people. I was embarrassed by it and I wasn’t a bit happy that my parents thought to lumber me with such an oddity. It took decades for me to come to terms with...
by Paul Gorry | Sep 8, 2021 | Cecil Leitch, Ernest Carter, Family History, Golf History, Great War, Hezlet Family, Irish Golf History, Irish Golfers, Joseph Gorry, Kildare, Lionel Munn, Naas, Royal Co. Down, Vagliano Trophy, War of Independence |
A hundred years ago this very day my grandfather, Joseph Gorry, reached the zenith of his amateur golfing career. Very probably for him it felt like failure. The events of that day became the stuff of golfing legend in the family. His daughter, Joan Gorry, was...
by Paul Gorry | Aug 20, 2021 | Ant and Dec, Baptists, Census Returns, Derry, DNA, Family History, Genealogical Virus, Genealogy, Graveyards, Kilcronaghan, Professional Genealogists, Television |
I’m led to believe that it was Mark Twain who said ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’, but who knows? Who cares? Truth is a commodity much less valuable than perception. Get a celebrity into a graveyard, show him any old gravestone and tell him...
by Paul Gorry | May 21, 2021 | Gordon Bennett, Joseph Gorry, Kildare, Local History, Motor Racing, Naas |
Gordon Bennett !!! This photograph was taken on Wednesday 1 July 1903 in South Main Street, Naas, Co. Kildare. What was happening was the weighing of the cars for the 4th Gordon Bennett Cup Race, the first to be held outside of France. The race took place the...