What's up with IrishGenealogy.ie?

As many Irish family historians are already aware, Ireland's main site for historical birth, marriage and death records – IrishGenealogy.ie – has been an on and off affair in the last two or three weeks. Most of the time it's been accessible. But it often hasn't, and sometimes the 'off' mode has lasted for more than one day at a time. When it has been working, it's frequently been decidedly sluggish.

To add to researchers' frustrations, the National Archives of Ireland's Genealogy website – with which IrishGenealogy.ie shares a server – has also been a bit giddy of late, although possibly less erratic than its buddy.

The managers of the site, which is run by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, tell me the IT team is aware there is a problem and they are working on it, but they have yet to identify the root cause.