When a "family detective" starts researching  “Royalty” connected to one’s family, there arises  women known as “Mistresses” and “Concubines”.  Most Kings had them. Do you know the difference in these terms or “titles”?

A concubine can be part of a harem, or a…

My Great-Grandfather Luke Gibbons is named after his grandfather who was born around 1780 in Ireland, probably in County Mayo. Luke is the son of Patrick Gibbons who was born in Ireland in 1806…

Bit, I told Janet earlier about you calling these kind of trips I make Fairy Trips....and she laughed. Later, she turned round and asked me what I had said about Fairies.

The more I think about this, I smile - travelling through Ireland with nary a care in the world, not worrying about where you are going because when you get there you will find something worth remembering - it is actually a fairy trip. Earlier today we were trying to get home from Castlecomer and I saw a sign…

I transcribe gravestones in Ireland as well as transcribing information from parish records.  I began transcribing the words of pre 1901 gravestones in 1996.  

I have a website which was created in 2001 and two years ago we put 170,000 gravestone and church photographs online.  I indexed the names off every stone I could read and we have that index online as well.  The numbers of gravestone photographs have increased since that time and the places I have been to stretch from…

Seventy million Irish diaspora know they have something intense and unexplainable coursing through their DNA. Perhaps, more than any other country in the world, Ire-land has left an extremely strong emotional connection to it's land through the DNA of it's people.   While we were…

At the encouragement of some fellow members of TheWildGeese.com, I'd like to introduce myself to everyone here with whom I have not had the privilege of interacting (yet).  I've recently made the decision to combine two of my most ardent passions -- Irishness and photography -- into a new business venture.  That business is called Irish Homeland Photography.   I'm thrilled to be one of the very first…