Issue 1, June 2001

Contents

Since I first began this web site I had intended loading information on Thomas Osborne Davis, and as the articles for the first issue of the From Ireland newsletter began to come together I realised that we had so many bits and pieces which tied in with what I had already began to put on this web site. Vince and I had not discussed what we intended to use and while Thomas Davis was to be a definite, other articles have been included either because of current issues in Ireland or because they fitted in so to speak.

While the newsletter was in preparation, we had a referendum in Ireland to remove the death penalty from our constitution. Young Kevin Barry was the last person to be executed in Ireland. Kevin was a medical student at University College when, with others he took part in an ambush in Church Street in September 1920, in which three people died. He was hanged on the morning of November 1st, 1920 and thousands prayed on the streets that morning. Kevin was 18 years old. While Ireland was finally voting to remove the death penalty, America was about to follow through on such a sentence.

Again, with the referendum, the low attendance at the polls struck me, particularly as women the world over had fought so hard to be given the privilege and Countess Markievich had spoken of this to Irish women.

It was originally intended that the newsletter would have a greater genealogical content and that the web site and newsletter should simply compliment each other. This is still the intention. Original unpublished transcriptions will be published in the newsletter as they are in genealogical journals, and references will be made to the names contained in the 'From Ireland' newsletter as they are for other journals on this web site.

Parish records will be a focus of the newsletter. It is not our intention to completely transcribe records, but to identify 'missing records' and to give some idea of the condition of records, transcribing some pages and listing surnames found in the records of any parish.

Contents