Féil-Scríbhinn Liam Mhic Alasdair - Essays Presented to Liam Mac Alasdair, FGSI

recognition to Irish chiefs of the name. Unfortunately, the MacCarthy Mór controversy has brought this area into disrepute in recent times, but in its day, courtesy recognition put the descendants of the old Irish aristocracy on a par with their continental counterparts.

The 1950s was a lean time for genealogy. It is chiefly remembered for the activities of Eoin ‘the Pope’ O’Mahony (1904-1970). His unusual nickname derived from the answer he gave to a question from one of his teachers when he was a primary school pupil: ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ In 1955 he organised the first O’Mahony Clan Gathering in the ancient seat of the O Mahonys at Gurranes, Templemartin, County Cork. Later, he founded the still thriving O’Mahony Society. His radio programme Meet the Clans brought him and family history to national prominence. This long running show, which spanned the fifties and sixties, gave him an opportunity to display his encyclopaedic knowledge of Irish families. One commentator remarked: ‘No other mortal brain could house the formidable assemblage of genealogical data that his did…’ The Pope O’Mahony was a larger than life character whose enthusiasm for genealogy and love of the Gaelic past was infectious.

The 1960s was a quiet time for genealogy. A few new books of interest to family tree enthusiasts came on the market. The Ulster Historical Foundation, which had been set up in the mid-50s as a research agency attached to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), began to publish source books, many on gravestone inscription. Of these it can be said that though the subject matter was rather tedious, at least the source was not confined to the upper echelons of society. Margaret Dickson Falley’s book Irish and ScotchIrish Ancestral Research was published in 1962. Of this two volume work, reviewers are usually agreed on two things: it contains a mass of invaluable information; it is virtually unreadable. Ms Falley did not organise her material in a reader-friendly way. She was in dire need of a good editor.

Fortunately for the Falley-weary genealogist, the 1970s began with the publication of the very readable Handbook of Irish Genealogy by the Heraldic Artists. For the first time, a ‘how to’ book recognised that genealogy was for everyone. Perhaps that is why it became so popular it had to be reprinted eight times in the twenty years that followed. The Handbook was a very useful work that gave many people a start in genealogy. Its chief drawback was the sample research case given for illustrative purposes. It gave the impression that compiling a family tree back to the seventeenth century was a simple matter, and that every ancestor would be found in all the various types of records. With no network of societies in existence where research experiences could be shared, it was the lot of each reader of the Handbook to find out by one disappointment after another that Irish records just aren’t that good.

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