Tuesday 22 November 2011

Bits and bobs

Pure Cork book launch: Anyone with Cork ancestors will want this newly launched book on their Christmas list. Pure Cork is a 350-image collection of advertisements, maps, sketches, postcards and photographs which tell the story of Cork's evolution over the last few hundred years. Michael Lenihan, author of the popular Hidden Cork, compiled the photos and memorabilia over many years and believes that about 95% of the photos have never been published before. It's on sale at Liam O’Shea’s Bookshop on Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork, where a display of some of the original photos are now on show, but also through Easons and several online booksellers. €25/hardback. 286 pages.

National Archives of Ireland: Due to a formal occasion, the Reading Room of the National Archives will be closed on the afternoon of Wednesday 30 November. However, it will be open in the morning, starting half an hour earlier than normal, at 9:30am, before closing at 12:00 midday. It will reopen, at the more usual time of 10:00, on Thursday 1 December.

Children in Irish workhouses: Here's an RTE podcast I chanced upon recently that you might be interested to download and listen to. Joseph Robbins tells the tale of young inmates of the workhouse in the 19th century, of the regulations they lived under, of their inefficient and ineffective education, and the difficult life they had to endure. It also tells of the forced emigration of many young workhouse girls.

Spanish Inquisition records reveal 500 Irish people: At the Irish Genealogical Research Society's symposium last month, Dr Thomas O'Connor of NUI Maynooth made a fascinating presentation about his work in Madrid where he found that hundreds of Irish men and women had been brought before the Spanish Inquisition (1478 to 1834). A news story in today's Irish Times gives more details of his discoveries but adds that copies of the records he discovered will soon be made available to the public.