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Ejectment Books

Have you ever wondered why your ancestors may have suddenly and seemingly inexplicably left their family farm?  The Ejectment Books might provide an answer. The Ejectment Books contain information on cases brought before a judge at county Quarter Sessions concerning the ejectment or removal of tenants from the landholdings by their landlords or agents.

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Military Service Pensions Collection

The Military Service Pensions Collection are applications made by individuals or their dependants for the award of a pension and gratuities for service with the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish Republican Army, Cumann na mBan and any other organisation who saw active service or were casualties or wounded while on duty between April

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The Settlement of the Ashe Family in Cavan

The following is an account of the settlement of the Ashe family in Cavan. Sir Thomas Ashe and his brother, John Ashe, began to develop their respective estates in Ireland in earnest from the beginning of the 17th century and before the plantation of Ulster.  In a recently-published account of the Ulster Plantation in counties Armagh and Cavan it was

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Valuation Office Revision Books

  With the exception of  Parish Registers and Civil Births, Deaths and Marriages, the Valuation Office Revision Books are amongst the most useful sources available to the Irish genealogist. The Revision Books are a continuation of Griffith’s Valuation of Ireland – officially the Primary Valuation of Tenements.  The purpose of this survey, conducted

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Irish Citizen Army

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was formed in October and November 1913 during the period of the Lockout.  The ICA was set up by the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) with the purpose of protecting demonstrating workers and pickets from the police force.  It was also a means of providing activity and purpose for the locked out workers. 

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Quaker Records

Birth, marriage and death records for the Society of Friends or Quakers are amongst the most accessible and systematic for any religious denomination in Ireland. The Quakers arrived in Ireland in the seventeenth century and from their date of arrival clear and concise records were kept for the life events of members of the Society.  Although the Quakers

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Hayes Manuscript Sources

Hayes Manuscript Sources, or, Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilization was created by the Director of the National Library of Ireland, Richard J. Hayes.  Started in 1941, the project to catalogue manuscript sources relevant to the history of Ireland was completed in 1965 with a supplement published in 1975. It is an extensive catalogue

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Betham’s Sketch Pedigrees

In a previous blog, the work of Sir William Betham and his collection of Genealogical Abstracts held at the National Archives was discussed.  In conjunction with the Genealogical Abstracts, Betham compiled an extensive collection of sketch pedigrees.  In large part these pedigrees were sketched from the material extracted from the Betham’s abstracts

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Betham’s Genealogical Abstracts

Sir William Betham (1779-1853) was appointed deputy Ulster King of Arms in 1807 and Ulster King of Arms in 1820.  Betham spent a lifetime collating indexes and abstracts of the manuscripts held in the Record Tower of Dublin Castle.  Although Betham was a polymath, it is his work in the Records Tower for which Irish genealogists and family historians

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The Police Gazette or Hue-and-Cry Ireland

The Police Gazette or Hue-and-Cry Ireland was published in Dublin every Tuesday and Friday by Alexander Thom & Co., and is almost always referred to as Hue-and-Cry  It is unclear when Hue-and Cry and was first published in Ireland and exactly how much of the publication survives.  The National Library of Ireland’s holding runs from 1837 to 1917,

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