04 May 2018

An afternoon workshop on
using parish records for
family and social history

The Members’ Room in the Royal Irish Academy … the venue for this afternoon’s lecture and workshop

Patrick Comerford

I am in Dublin today to give a lecture later this afternoon [4 May 2018] at the Royal Irish Academy on sources in parish records for genealogy and family history.

This lecture and workshop, ‘Finding Trails and Tales in Parish Records,’ has been organised by Fiona Fitzsimons of Eneclann of the Irish Family History Centre.

Church records help us to go beyond merely collecting and harvesting the names and vital dates of ancestors. Through them, we enter a world of past generations, learning about their social networks, their living conditions, their political values, their social concerns and priorities, and the multiple layers of religious and ethnic mixes that have helped to make us the people we are in Ireland today.

This is the first in a series of ‘expert workshops’ organised by Enecall and hosted by the Royal Irish Academy.

In this afternoon’s workshop, I plan to introduce parish records as a genealogical source, while warning of some of the common pitfalls, and hope to illustrate my ideas with many personal anecdotes.

In their publicity, the organisers have described me as ‘a most engaging speaker,’ and have promised that I ‘will usher you into a world of past generations, where you can learn about their social networks, living conditions, political values and social concerns – and the multiple layers of religious and ethnic mixes that have helped to make us the people we are in Ireland.’

The lecture begins in the Members’ Room in the Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin at 3 p.m., and the workshop ends at 4.30 p.m. It is free but the organisers have said that ‘due to high demand’ places should ideally be booked in advance on Eventbrite.ie .

The photograph used in the publicity for this afternoon's workshop

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