 Researching the Irish Schools’ Collection
with JILL WILLIAMS (via Zoom from Edinburgh) In the late 1930s, more than 50,000 children in 5,000 primary schools in the Irish Free State were enlisted to collect folklore in their home districts. This included oral history, topographical information, folktales and legends, riddles and proverbs, games and pastimes, trades and crafts. The children recorded this material from their parents, grandparents, and neighbors, and it can now be found—and searched—in the Irish Schools’ Collection at www.duchas.ie. Jill Williams will discuss this underused resource and encourage our members to delve into it. Jill Williams has been teaching family history courses for over two decades. She was a longtime volunteer in the library of the Irish Genealogical Research Society in London and is a fellow of the society. |
 Tour of
St. Patrick’s Old CathedralDate: October 4, 2025
Time: 11 am
Cost: $30 The Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, built over 200 years ago, was the first cathedral of New York and the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral until 1879, when the bishop’s chair was moved to the new cathedral on Fifth Ave. The Irish Family History Forum has arranged a behind-the-scenes tour at the Basilica in Lower Manhattan on Saturday, October 4, at 11 a.m. The tour is ADA-compliant. During our 90-minute visit, we’ll see areas of the church grounds that are usually not open to the public. We’ll go underground to visit the only Catholic catacombs in New York. We’ll see where bishops rest alongside prominent New York Catholics who played important roles in state, American, and Catholic history, including a Civil War general. We will also visit the basilica’s two walled cemeteries. Among those interred there is John Curry, one of the witnesses to the apparition at Knock in Co. Mayo in 1879. Click here to register and pay for the tour.
Note: A PayPal account is not required to pay by credit card. |
 The Great Hunger
with ELIZABETH STACK Between 1846 and 1851, about a million people in Ireland died of famine-related causes. Most deaths were due to diseases like typhus rather than starvation per se, although diseases like dysentery and scurvy are related to lack of food. Elizabeth Stack will discuss conditions leading up to the failure of the potato crop and the devastating consequences for the population of Ireland. She will examine the response of the British government and the landlords, as well as testimonies from eyewitnesses. American charity in Ireland and the mass migration, including life on board the so-called coffin ships, will also be covered. Elizabeth Stack, Ph.D., is the former executive director of the American Irish Historical Society in Manhattan and former executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, New York. At Fordham University, she taught Irish and Irish American history and was associate director of Fordham’s Institute of Irish Studies.
She is a frequent guest on podcasts and radio shows about Irish America. |
 The Shape-Shifting Nature of Old Irish Surnames
with IRENE MORGAN Your brick wall could be a modern-day blind spot in surname pronunciation or spelling. Old Irish surnames are living, breathing entities that shape-shifted and evolved across generations. Discover how to navigate mysterious spelling variants and aliases to trace elusive family names all the way back to Ireland. Irene Morgan, a native Irish speaker, is the resident genealogy writer for Ireland Reaching Out and founder of Irish Quest. She spoke to the Forum in January about Irish forenames and nicknames. |
 Christmas Luncheon
Sunday, December 14, 2025
Irish Coffee Pub
East Islip, NY Irish vocalist/guitarist Victor Cunneen will entertain the gathering, performing Irish as well as seasonal music. Cunneen, a native of Midleton, Co. Cork, was greatly influenced by the folk ballad boom of the early 1960s, particularly by the playing of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He has performed throughout Ireland and many European countries, and in Egypt, the U.S., and Canada. |
