Tag Archives: Blog

Blog Introduction

Blog : from-ireland.net

Introduction

A friend said to me last night  that I should have a blog, and I laughed and replied that I had a few of them over the years and that now, sometimes I post pages on from-ireland that I label ‘blog pages’.  After our chat I was trying to read a book but it kept coming to my head, “OK, what will I do?  Will I research the net for where I could host a blog, will I check out Google+, how about Linkedin?  How many other sites are there where I could have a blog?”  Loads of questions.


Woke up this morning (25th March, 2016) and said to myself, “Jane, just create a ‘blog index’ page on from-ireland.  Load up all the posts you have labelled ‘blog’, take the url’s and create a Blog index page.  Then, tag the link to that page on to all your county pages and hey, you have a blog”

I do have a Facebook page under my name Jane Lyons, attached to that I have a page called Irish Genealogy.  Irish Genealogy is tagged as the official Facebook page for from-ireland.  Then I have a mail list called Y-IRL created in 2001.

The last few years have seen mail lists pretty much die because of the introduction of Social Media Sites.  Facebook (FB) is grand BUT I can make a post (send in a message) and FB will tell me how many people it has reached.  Take for example a post I made about Haemochromatosis on Thursday night 24th March, today that post has ‘reached’ over 9,000+ people.  It had been shared 90+ times before I looked at it today BUT next week I will receive a message from FB telling me that Irish Genealogy had 300+ visitors last week.  Logically I can’t see how those figures equate.  If I leave them even as I have them here then they are divisible *but* how on earth do 300 visitors, ‘reach’ 9000 people?  I freely admit that I am *hopeless* at maths!

from-ireland began not just as a genealogy website but as a site where I wanted to teach people about our history as we learned it.  I wanted to include our culture.  I wanted to include everything I liked about Ireland.  I live in Ireland.  Times are that I talk about something which is not ‘genealogical’ and times are that I get a negative feedback about this.  Times are I receive emails and messages of a negative frame re from-ireland.  Thing is from-ireland is not a business web site, it is a site created by one woman who had an idea back in 2001 when there was nothing (website wise) coming out of Ireland.  from-ireland then seemed to become a website that concentrated mainly on gravestones (2011).

I’m putting dates on the newer posts, but, generally speaking, the list begins at the bottom and works its way up

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Dr. Jane Lyons’ Blog Index

As I drive through a village, a town, a town land, any place and I see something, I want to talk about it, I want to share photos, I want to tell you what I think. I just want to sit as if I am in a room with a bunch of photos showing them to my friends, telling them what I saw, what I thought. Enjoy.


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Photographs of Graiguenamanagh Town, Co. Kilkenny

There I was yesterday and I decided to take myself off to the Book Fair in Graiguenamanagh, Kilkenny.  Graiguenamanagh is about 75 minutes of a drive away from me.  I didn’t even think about what part of Kilkenny it is in I just set off.  Sent my daughter a text telling her where I was going and she replies “You’ll call in then”.  She was down visiting her in laws in a place called Skeoghvosteen (I sometimes spell it Skeoughvosteen) and Skeoghvosteen is only a few miles from Graiguenamanagh.  I’d forgotten that, hadn’t I? :)


Even though I went to Graiguenamanagh because of the Book Fair, it’s still the kind of a town that you just photograph.  Take advice from Andy Defrancesco if you need photography advice. The flower display outside Graig Kebabish is spectacular.  The two little dogs had me laughing.  They were sitting looking up at one of the men who was eating and they were glued to him.  Later on, as I was walking back to my car they had moved across the road and I realised they were following the man!  Later on still, they had moved down the river and were beside the Scout hall.

The river, the bridge, the boats and the barges on the river, all so much for a brain to take in.  People live on some of the barges.  Look at the flowers around one of them.

I hope you enjoy these photos

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Blog: A Graveyard Story

Let me tell you a little story, and to me, it’s actually very sad and maybe if I show you these photographs you’ll understand why it is sad to me.


I jokingly say “I *do* gravestones” and then I add in that I transcribe the information on stones and have been doing this since 1996 after I first discovered the old Archaeological & HIstorical Journals in the research part of the library of University College Dublin (UCD).  Once upon a time I was a lecturer in the Zoology Dept, of UCD.  The week before last during my few days in Cork, I said to myself, that’s it Jane you’re just a gravestone woman from now on.

I don’t try to explain that I love what I do.  I know though, that once I begin talking about stones, everyone who hears me knows that I am passionate about what I do. I love, I just love finding a person ‘alive’ who has been named on a stone I have transcribed and finding out something about that person.  I loved indexing the names of the Heads of Household for the 1901 census, tagging these in with the names of the Lessors from the Griffiths. It’s magic, it’s wonderful.  I love it.

A couple of weeks ago I met some friends and they told me that ‘Killermogh’ was going to be transcribed the next day and suggested that perhaps I’d like to go along, so I did. I went to the ‘modern’ Killermogh Church of Ireland church and met up with John Tierney of Historic Graves (we knew one another) and then off I went with him and a lady who was representing the Heritage office of Co. Laois at this transcription project.

I did not get the names of the people enough to remember them, but there was a man who was from Killermogh parish, there was a lady from somewhere else who I think was his cousin. There was a man who came over from Lea parish, there was the lady representing the Heritage office, there was John Tierney and myself.  All in all, in the group present there was one man from Killermogh and myself from Clough.

We worked on this graveyard and at least 34 stones were transcribed.  Mention was made of going back to work on some stones that the ivy had been removed off (I think).

That was at the beginning of June.

Today I went to that same graveyard, I wanted to get some photographs of a stone which John Tierney said was exceptional for Co. Laois and now, I want to show you the photographs I took.

It was said when we were there that the graveyard should be left in the condition it was in when we went there so that people who come to it will experience it as we did.  I’m afraid, I wouldn’t agree to that at all.  There were holes in the ground, how do we warn people who go there to look at family stones about these?

Just look at the length of the grass.  Bobby the Jack Russel can just about be seen. Maggie my Boxer dog, she is not a small dog, look at the height of the grass around her.

For the first time ever (and I have been in many graveyards) I was very wary of where I would put my foot.  I was actually worried in case I might fall because if I did then the dogs weren’t going to be able to get me out, or tell anyone where I was.  The brambles and nettles were thriving. I had to do a lot of standing on plants before I could move forward…..and would you believe, here I am creating all these web pages to show photographs of churches or church remnants and I totally forgot to photograph the remains of the church here!!!

I don’t understand how it is or why it is that professionals can be paid money to come and ‘teach/help’ locals transcribe stones in a graveyard and then the graveyard is just forgotten again.  I just don’t understand it, and so, I am showing you photographs of the conditions of some of our graveyards, the graveyards that are lost in fields on farms.

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