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 | 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 | Dec 19, 2018 | Family History, McDermott, Traditions, WDYTYA? |
Katie McDermott, née Nolan (1873-1964) I had 13 grandaunts and 18 granduncles – 31 in all – but only four of them were still alive when I was born. It seems that grandaunts and granduncles have gone out of fashion with Irish people. They’ve been supplanted by...
by Paul Gorry | Aug 24, 2018 | Baltinglass, Family History, Local History, West Wicklow Historical Society |
The recent intense and prolonged heatwave experienced by Ireland reminded me of a short newspaper article I came across a few years ago. I included it in my contribution to the Journal of the West Wicklow Historical Society, No. 6 (2011), ‘Miscellaneous...
