Introduction
Blast from the past: 'Unfortunately, the National Library possesses no staff member whose primary function it is to oversee the provision of genealogical services, and the Office of the Chief Herald is preoccupied primarily with the sale of coats of arms, an inappropriate activity for a library department in the present writer's opinion.' (Introduction to Directory of Irish Genealogy, 2002)
The Directory
of Irish Genealogy
was
published in conventional printed form between 1990 and 1994 and has
been on the Internet since 1998, this being the 2012 Edition. The
Directory is designed to assist not only genealogists in Ireland but
also the 'Diaspora', those of Irish descent living abroad, and indeed
all who have an interest in Irish genealogy. Here can be found the
customary mix of useful information, guidance and
links,
accompanied by statements of opinion on areas of concern in the realm
of Irish genealogy. Contact details of most
of the repositories and organisations mentioned are either linked below or may be found in our Links
section. As usual it should be noted that all opinions
expressed are of course those of the author alone, and where factual
errors can be demonstrated they will be corrected. Any endorsements on
this site are based on the writer's opinions and are not paid
advertising.
A review of the events of 2011 cannot fail to
mention the continuing and indeed worsening economic crisis which
followed the collapse
of the Celtic Tiger.
The Republic of Ireland has lost its economic sovereignty and must
follow a programme of debt repyament and public expenditure cutbacks
dictated by a Troika composed of the International Monetary Fund, the
European Union and the European Central Bank. There is a growing
opinion that the repayment schedule is beyond Irish means and
furthermore it refers to debts not the responsibility of the Irish
people, particularly the billions owed by the corrupt Anglo-Irish Bank.
If the Irish economy is to recover, sooner or later there must be some
sort of debt write-offs or structured default.
The effects of the crisis on Irish health, education and
welfare services have been severe and are likely to get worse. The impact
has been felt as well in the case of our particular pursuit, but before
outlining the problems arising, we should remember that no-one will suffer
serious want or die as a result of cutbacks in genealogical services.
The
National Library of Ireland has had to reduce its opening hours and has
ended on-demand ordering of material, which will only be issued at
specified times. Showing that little has been learned from previous
debacles such as the €1.17 million Finnegans Wake
manuscripts 'sting', the Comptroller and Auditor General revealed this
year that over €100,000 was wasted on the publication of a book
on the
Library's holdings in 2009, which had to be withdrawn due to serious
errors. For reasons which the writer cannot fathom, individuals who are
not qualified librarians continue to be appointed to the directorship
of the National Library. Despite being thoroughly discredited through
its staff's entanglement with the Mac Carthy Mór
and allied scandals, the Library's Genealogical Office/Office of the
Chief Herald is back in the inappropriate business of selling arms,
detached and pretentious as ever and thoroughly deserving of being
wound up. While the writer suffers from retaliatory blacking from work
associated with the National Library, no disciplinary action appears to
have been taken against the senior staff members who signed official
documents validating bogus and questionable pedigrees, arms and titles,
and most of the corrupt Library records identified in the writer's 2004
book Twilight of the Chiefs remain unamended.
The National Archives of Ireland has also had to
limit services but still allows on-demand albeit more restricted
ordering of material, and it has a much broader range of records
available in its self-service microfilm room than the National Library.
While outstanding published Director's reports have now been
brought up to 2009, the National Archives was being run by
an acting Director as the year 2011 drew to a close. There is no sign
that steps are being taken to correct the substantial errors and omissions
in the Archives's massively expensive €4 million-plus online 1901 and
1911 Censuses project. Some sort of difficulty appears to
have arisen in relation to a (belated) attempt to put the provision of
of the Archives's genealogical consultancy service out to tender, which
service is now only available during mornings, with the room and its
resources locked in the afternoons. Government is proceeding with its
cost-saving plan
to
amalgamate the National Library and National Archives, and while many
historians and genealogists oppose this, the writer has reluctantly
come to accept its necessity, and hopes that any new merged body will
be run in a more efficient way, hopefully with a proper department
dealing with genealogy, allied perhaps with heraldry and local studies
(suggested title 'Family and Place'). For years the writer has been
calling
for commercial and voluntary groups to be permitted to take the lead in
digitising of Irish records, and in 2011 a new commercial service,
Findmypast.ie, has placed online prison registers, directories and other material.
The General Register Office remains in an aloof
world of its own when dealing with genealogists, still requiring them
to pay fees to search manually birth, marriage and death indexes and
limiting copy registration orders to five per day. There is still no
explanation as to why the GRO's stalled multi-million Euro programme to
digitise historic registrations has not been properly completed and
there is a clear case for this task to be licenced to a commercial firm
and/or FamilySearch. It should be remembered that FamilySearch
now
provides online access free of charge to Irish vital records indexes
from 1845/64 (for some reason Ireland is now included under 'British
Isles' on this site). Genealogists should ensure they have referred to
the FamilySearch
resource before wasting time and money in the GRO search room, which
contains no computer facilities. The following charming notice, which
speaks volumes about what is wrong with Ireland, has been greeting
callers to the GRO in the Irish Life Centre, Dublin:
Mention should be made of the fact that new Arts
Minister Jimmy Deenihan made himself available to genealogists at a
meeting in the National Library on 7 September 2011, listening to their
concerns and suggestions for dealing with problems. Having been
excluded from such meetings since his exposure of the Mac Carthy Mór
hoax in June 1999, the writer was pleasantly surprised to receive an
invitation to the gathering, duly attending and giving an illustrated
and one hopes constructive presentation. For the historical record, it
can be noted that the
genealogists present at this important meeting came across as a still
very
divided lot, some denouncing Mormon and commercial involvement in
computerising Irish records and stating this should be the task of
local and county centres, others insisting that resources could and
should be found to make records freely available online, and a new
hard-headed group of entrepeneurs letting it be known that they are
making considerable progress placing records online on a pay-to-view
basis but at no cost to the state. The writer has made no secret of his view that the latter group,
with the Mormons and any other competent voluntary workers, should
undertake most digitisation work, as there must be an end to the cycle
of inefficiency and waste of public resources which has marked
Irish genealogy's relationship with information technology over the
past few decades. The record repositories should be rationalised and
their reduced staffs oriented towards the task of managing the records
and maintaining the highest possible level of service to the public,
which work would include smaller scale digitisation projects
particularly focussed on improving online catalogues and research
guides.
The writer's Adult Education classes in genealogy
in University College Dublin continue to do very well, as do other
genealogy courses, reflecting the
perhaps paradoxical fact that for the present at least the 'roots boom'
does not appear to be greatly affected by the economic recession. My
classes now constitute a
three-year, six-module Certificate course mapped at Level 7 of the
National Framework of Qualifications. A new Introduction to Genealogy
course, not involving assignments or credits, was started in the Autumn
of 2011. For those
who cannot attend my classes I continue to offer online the free Primer in Irish Genealogy.
Sean Murphy
Centre for Irish Genealogical and Historical Studies
Last amended 22 March 2012