Elaine Hannon Genealogy

22/05/2019

On 2nd June 1864 Hubert McNamara of the 155th New York Infantry, Corcoran’s Irish Legion, prepared a letter for his wife. He was aware that the following morning he would be going into action; he was among the men of the Army of the Potomac then preparing to assault the Confederate lines at Cold H...

15/05/2019

A wonderful video of old photographs of people,children, places in Dublin city, Ireland.

17/04/2019

Burial records for both Dean’s Grange Cemetery, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland and Shanganagh Cemeteries, Old Bray Road, Shankill, County Dublin are available to search for free online.

https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/cemeteries/burial-records

The land for Deansgrange Cemetery was purchased in 1861 and the first burial took place in 1865. The cemetery contains the remains of over 140,000 people.

Shanganagh Lawn Cemetery opened in 1984. It was to be the Cemetery for South County Dublin for the following 100 years. The first burial took place in June 1984 and there are now nearly 16,500 burials in the Cemetery.

If you have difficulty locating a record, please email us at .If you identify a discrepancy in a digital record, please use the 'Suggest an Edit' option to report it. Amendments and corrections can only be made, however, if the paper records support the requested change.

16/04/2019

An old photograph of Main Street, Ballaghaderreen, in County Roscommon, Ireland, c.1950s.

Ballaghaderreen c.1950s.

13/04/2019

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-Ancestors-Grenham/dp/0717174654/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=4YXLJP9WM49N&keywords=tracing+your+irish+ancestors+john+grenham&qid=1555169400&s=books&sprefix=Tracing+your+Irish+ancestors+%2Cstripbooks%2C249&sr=1-1-fkmrnull

Tracing Your Irish Ancestors

02/04/2019

The Irish Beauty from Ballynatray, County Waterford, who became a Sicilian Princess.

THE IRISH BEAUTY WHO BECAME A SICILIAN PRINCESS

Ballynatray, County Waterford, Ireland
Selma Hall, Sliema, Malta
Royal Palace of Caserta, Campania, Italy
Villa Marlia, near Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

The woman in this portrait was Her Royal Highness Penelope Caroline, Princess of Capua. For the first 20 years of her life, this slender Irish beauty was better known as Penelope Smyth.

Penelope was the daughter of Grice Smyth, a Protestant gentleman who lived in Ballynatray House on the Waterford side of the River Blackwater outside Youghal.

As a young woman, Penelope was introduced to Carlo, Prince of Capua, younger brother of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. The Prince and the King hailed from the great Bourbon dynasty that had ruled over so much of Europe for 300 years, and whose name is now famously recalled in the Bourbon whiskey of the American South.

Penelope and the Prince hit it off immediately. Their love seems to have been entirely genuine but they came under immense pressure due to the differences in class between a Prince of the House of Bourbon and an Irish commoner.

The couple eloped to Scotland and were married at Gretna Green in 1836. However, King Ferdinand refused to give his all-important recognition to his brother's marriage because Penelope was not of Royal blood. He knew how poorly it would go down with all the other women at his court in Naples if this Irish girl was suddenly classed as their aristocratic superior.

To try and sway the king, Penelope and Carlo were married on a further three occasions - in Madrid, Rome and London.

But Ferdinand would not budge.

By the autumn of 1836, Europe was awash with rumours that Carlo was planning to overthrow Ferdinand and install his Irish bride as Queen of Sicily.

However, the truth was that Carlo and Penelope had little taste for the limelight. Despondent and hurt, they abandoned Naples and made their way to the Mediterranean island of Malta where they built a palace called Selma Hall in the town of Sliema.

They remained as exiles in Malta for the next fourteen years, raising a son Francesco, the Count di Mascali, (1837–1862) and a daughter, Vittoria di Borbonne (1838–1895).

Meanwhile, Ferdinand became ever more absolutist. In 1848, he earned the nickname ‘Ferdinand the Bomber’ when he violently suppressed a rebellion in Sicily by bombing the port of Messina. He died in 1859, shortly before the kingdom of the Two Sicilies collapsed in the wake of Garibaldi's invasion. His son Francis II was deposed in March 1861.

Victor Emmanuel II, who became King of the newly united Italy, formally recognized the marriage of Penelope and Carlo, shortly after the latter's death in 1862. Penelope was granted the royal residence of Marlia, a neo-classical villa near Lucca in Tuscany, where she died in 1882.

A tablet on the wall of St Mary’s Collegiate Church in Youghal, County Cork, reads as follows:

‘In memoriam Her Royal Highness Penelope Caroline, Princess of Capua, daughter of Grice Smyth of Ballynatray, Co. Waterford, born 19th July 1805, died 13th December 1882. The beloved wife and faithful widow of His Royal Highness Carlo Ferdinando di Borbonne, Prince of Capua, who died 2nd April 1862. This memorial devoted to a devoted and lamented mother is erected by her loving and beloved son and daughter, His Royal Highness Prince Francesco Carlo di Borbonne and her Royal Highness Victoria Augusta Ludovica Isabella Amelia Philomina Helena Penelope did Borbonne Capua.
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’.

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04/03/2019

The 1,000-year-old Viking weaver's sword discovered in Cork City was among several discoveries of significance unearthed recently.

A 1,000-year-old perfectly preserved Viking sword has been discovered by archaeologists at the historic site of the former Beamish and Crawford brewery in Cork city.

28/02/2019

Dominic West takes us on a tour of Glin Castle, County Limerick Ireland, the Irish ancestral home of his wife Catherine FitzGerald's family.

07/02/2019

A feature length in-depth documentary
Directed and edited by Marcus Howard, from the perspectives of renowned Michael Collins historians and family members looking at the first months of the Irish War of Independence in 1919.

Directed and edited by Marcus Howard.

11/12/2018

"Seanchai" written by Kathleen Curran. A book which delves into the lives of Irish migrants who moved to the UK in the 1950s hopes to be “a voice” for that generation.

The book has a personal element: it was inspired by Curran’s own parents, who were Irish immigrants, who came to the UK in the 1950s.

05/12/2018

Dating from the 8th century AD, the Moylough belt shrine is one of the great treasures of early Ireland was found in 1945 by Mr John Towey in his father’s farm at Moylough, County Sligo, Ireland.

31/10/2018

Happy Celtic New Year – In ancient Ireland November 1 began at sundown on October 31st.

Happy Celtic New Year – In ancient Ireland November 1 began at sundown on October 31st. The month of November is still called Samhain in the Irish language which is name of one of the greatest Celtic festivals. The concept of Mother Nature was held dear by the ancient Irish (and many other ancient peoples too). At Samhain (sow-in) the old Mother Nature died and a new one was born. The newborn Mother Nature matured until Imbolc (February 1) when the ground was ready to be impregnated with seed.

Directly opposite Samhain on the calendar is the summer festival of Bealtaine (May 1) and at both times of the year it was believed that the partition between this world and the otherworld became weak thereby allowing the spirits of the otherworld to roam freely among the living. The ancient Irish believed that the gods and the spirits of the dead lived in a multiverse including underground in fairy mounds, across the western sea or in an invisible world that coexists alongside the world of humans.

Tonight with the portals to the otherworld open your ancestors are coming to visit! Be sure and leave them food and pay homage to them. It was through their struggle that we enjoy freedom and a bountiful existence today. Be warned, the evil spirits are coming too, even though nobody invited them and they are looking to carry off innocent mortals to the otherworld. Be sure to make yourself to look like an evil spirit so that they pass you by and take some poor schmuck who did not dress up. You have been warned!

Samhain I think was like today’s Christmas festival or Thanksgiving festival in America because the joy of the festival was augmented with homecoming. At Bealtaine (be al tin ah) the boys of the family were sent to the uplands to tend to herds of cattle. At Samhain they returned and the reunited family had further cause for great celebration.

The practice of using upland summer pastures in such an ancient one that its artefacts often go unnoticed. The Irish word for a boy, buachaill translates as cow herder. The mostly upland summer pastures were known as a booley (Búille) and this is in many place names including Boyle in Roscommon (Mainistir na Búille) and the Boleyvogue (Buaile Mhaodhóg) of the famous ballad. Bú was an earlier form of Bó which is the modern Irish is the word for an ox or a cow. The latter form is most famously found in the word for a road, bóthar which directly translates as ox trail.

You are all familiar with the Irish word for a “fairy”, sidhe (p. shee) as it is found in the more familiar term Banshee. In Irish literature the people of the mounds are called daoine sídhe (p. dee ana she) who are variously said to be the ancestors, the spirits of nature or goddesses and gods. The aos sí (p. ahos shee, older form aes sídhe p. ays sheeth-uh) is the term used for a supernatural race in Irish mythology comparable to the fairies or elves. Often they are not named directly but rather spoken of as “The Good Neighbours”, “The Fair Folk”, or simply “The Folk”.

The Banshee (Bean sídhe) is the harbinger of death in Irish mythology and if you hear her wail someone near is about to die. Confusingly the word sídhe is also the word used to describe the dwelling place of fairies thus these days they are often referred to as sídhe mounds or fairy mounds. Bean (p. ban) means woman thus Banshee translates directly as woman fairy.

Places associated with the ancient Samhain festival include the historic Hill of Tara which contains a Neolithic (New Stone Age) structure built between 3000 and 2500 BC and known today as the Mound of the Hostages. It is an ancient passage tomb with its inner chamber aligned with the rising sun on the dates of Samhain and Imbolc. It pre-dates the arrival of the Celtic culture in Ireland thus while Samhain is Celtic it too was probably based on a much older celebration.

The hill of Knockma (Cnoc Meadha) west of Tuam, County Galway is said in legend to be the residence of Finnbheara, the king of the Connacht fairies. The hill rises out of a large flat plain and has two large prehistoric cairns (stone mounds) on top of it. One is said to be the burial place Finnbheara and the other of Queen Medb.

When Finnbheara rises tonight and if you happen to be in the vicinity you will probably hear this tune played in his honour called appropriately “King of the Fairies”. If you feel like dancing and getting all Celtic here is that tune.

In the 1970s the tune was plugged into a nearby electric power station and it came out like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFK7Jc1HEvs

And after the reunion 40 years later! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd-R1sSgd7o

Image: a romanticised imagining of Samhain. Why not!

17/10/2018

Back To Our Past takes place again this year in the Industries Hall at the RDS, Dublin. Accredited Genealogists Ireland will be present at Stands B5A, B5B and B5C. We will have our Vintage Stand, and popular Bookstall again this year, selling books published by our own members as well as second hand books. We will be providing 20 minute FREE genealogy consultations throughout the weekend. AGI Member Paul Gorry will also be signing copies of his new book 'Accreditation for Genealogists" on our stand at Back To Our Past from 2.00pm to 2.30pm each day over the three days. It is a 'must' for all those wishing to pursue Genealogy as a professional career! Drop by and have a chat with him.Here is our stand from last year, so do drop by and say hello!

03/09/2018

Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI) present two genealogy lectures in association with the National Archives of Ireland at 6pm on Wednesday 5th September and 6pm on Wednesday 19th September 2018. The lectures are free and will take place in the National Archives of Ireland, Bishop Street, Dublin 2.

Accredited Genealogists Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland Lecture Series Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI) present two genealogy lectures in association with the National Archives of Ireland at 6pm on Wednesday 5th September and 6pm on Wednesday 19th September 2018. The lectures are f...

26/07/2018

Singer Boy George, Series 15, Who Do You Think You Are?

Boy George expects to find a lot of sadness in his family tree.

12/07/2018

The heatwave is believed to have led to the discovery of a possible henge close to Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland. It's thought it could have been built 500 years after Newgrange, which dates from 3,000 BC.

03/07/2018

A wonderful image of Patrick Street, Cork City, County Cork, Ireland in 1902.

Patrick Street - 1902

Things to note:
🔸A woman dashing across the street in front of a horse & cart

🔸The Union Jacks flying on both sides of the street - Cork was in fact a very Loyalist city up until the Easter Rising & subsequent events.

🔸The trams which ran along the street as far out as Sunday’s Well

10/04/2018

Have you signed the petition to release the 1926 Irish Census? If you haven't know is your chance!

Leo Varadkar: Release the 1926 Irish Census