Failte to Ireland!

Three things from which never be moved: One's Oaths, One's Gods, and the Truth. The three highest causes of the true human are: Truth, Honour and Duty. Three Candles that illuminate every darkness: Truth, Nature and Knowledge.

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Ireland Mail List Warning This site has a sound background. In order to see a list of the Songs used on this site and download the midi files, please click on the following link: The Songs On Tnis Site Please click on the name of the song to see the lyrics. :) Song being played is "Londonderry Air" aka   "Dannyboy" A Little Bit of Heaven Author Unknown Detailed Irish Map: Click on the map for a larger image Have you ever heard the story of how Ireland got it's name? I'll tell you, so you'll understand from where old Ireland came. No wonder that we're proud of that dear land across the sea, For here's the way me dear old mother told the tale to me. Shure, a little bit of Heaven fell from out of the sky one day, And nestled on the ocean in a spot so far away; And when the Angels found it, Shure it looked so sweet and fair. They said, "Suppose we leave it, for it looks so peaceful there." So they sprinkled it with star dust just to make the shamrocks grow; 'Tis the only place you'll find them no matter where you go; Then they dotted it with silver to make it's lakes so grand, And when they had if finished, shure they called it Ireland. 'Tis a dear old land of fairies and of wondrous wishing wells; And nowhere else on God's green earth have they such lakes and dells! No wonder that the Angles loved it's shamrock bordered shore. 'Tis a little bit of Heaven and I love it more and more.   Dia dhuit augus failte! Hello and Welcome! My name is Deborah,Gobnait in the Gaeilge. I am the listowner and facilitator for the IRELAND News List. The IRELAND mailing list is aimed at helping people with Irish ancestors. We are researching our family histories, curious to learn more about all things of Ireland, and eager to share a love for our heritage. Our list includes approximately 800 ancestor searchers, lovers of Ireland from all over the world. The IRELAND list is different from most other genealogy lists, more than 'who, where and when'. We enjoy diverse discussions which allow us to share information on genealogy, but also about all aspects of Irish history, folklore, poetry,literature and all things of Ireland. This in turn gives us a better understanding for the circumstances of our ancestors lives and our connection to Ireland. De nobis fabula narratur, their story is our story. To subscribe to the Ireland List please send an email to [email protected] for mail mode or [email protected] for digest mode with the word 'SUBSCRIBE' in the subject line and body of the mail. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me: [email protected]. Thanks for visiting the Ireland List Web Site! Beannachtai augus Siochain, Blessings and Peace, Deb � hAinbhth�n/� hEidhin/� Cathasaigh List Mom Sending Email If you have suggestions or comments, you may email the Web Mistress by clicking on the following: Debbie Romilly "The List Mom had to change her email address when Home.com went out of business. We are currently trying to correct every place where the email link for the List Mom is located at in this WEB Site. Our recommendation is to notify us of any place where the email link is in error. When reporting the error, please note the page which the email link is on. Thank you!." The Ireland List Message Center If you want to visit the Ireland List Chat Room or Bulletin Board, please click here: The Message Center Are you a New Comer to the Ireland List? Then perhaps the Newby's Page is for you! Spread through out this site are bits of information useful to the New Comer, but this Page is especially for you to help guide you through the site. Also on this page are other bits of information which can be not be accessed through any other page... so maybe the more experienced users would like to take a look as well. :) Just click on this Link: Go to the Newby's Page Are you searching for information? Then try our: Internet Search Engine Page The Genealogy Psalm Genealogy is my pastime, I shall not stray It maketh me to lie down and examine tombstones It leadeth me into still courthouses It restoreth my Ancestral Knowledge It leadeth me in the paths of census records and ships' passenger lists for my surnames' sake Yea, through I walk through the shadows of research libraries and microfilm readers I shall fear no discouragement, for a strong urge is within me The curiosity and motivation, they comforteth me It demandeth preparation of storage space for the acquisition of countless documents It anointest my head with burning midnight oil My family group sheets runneth over Surely, birth, marriage, and death dates shall follow me all the days of my life And I shall dwell in the house of a family history-seeker forever. Please Visit To Know Ireland Is To Love Her Brian O' Higgins If we know Ireland of the great joys and great sorrows and holy memories we will love her with a love that cannot be killed in our hearts; if we do not know her as children know their mother we cannot be certain that when trials come to her, and trouble and danger, we will stand by her stainless cause, willing to suffer pain and privation, willing to make big and little sacrifices for the sake of the Motherland God has given into our keeping to love and serve and prize beyond all the rest of the great world He has made. The country that has not an inspiring story to tell her children, the country that cannot point to a long list of martyrs and heroes and champions and lovers, the country that cannot say that sons and daughters of hers have suffered torture and hunger and imprisonment and exile and death itself for her sake - that country cannot rely upon the fidelity of her children in her hour of need. She will mean no more to them than a tract of land, groups of houses called cities and towns, mountain ranges, big and little lakes, rivers and woods and fields, just the same as any other country to which they may turn their steps. Such a country is to be pitied. She may have untold riches, she may have power in the world, she may prosper and thrive and expand her territories, but when the storm breaks over her and the hour of her trial comes, the bond of love that would bind her children to her side, the spark of love that would inspire them to give their lives for her sake will be missing, and she will go down, broken and beaten, before the onslaught of her foes. But a country whose every field is sanctified by memories of brave and holy lives, whose history is one long record of noble and unselfish sacrifice, whose heart, even in the hour of her greatest sorrow, thrills at thought of the love that has been given to her by saints and scholars and soldiers and unknown men and women through hundreds of years - that country may be trampled to the earth and scourged and starved and insulted and laid prostrate under the heels of merciless enemies; but she will rise again, radiant and beautiful, for the magic of the love that has been given to her will keep her heart forever young and call to her aid a few or many in every generation to suffer and die, if need be, that she may live. And through her children may be scattered all over the earth, they will still remember her and and speak her name and tell her story to their children , and in the hour of her greatest need there will be voices to speak for her and hearts to love her and willing hands to help her in every land under the sun. And sooner or later, because of the love and faith that has sustained her and kept her near to God, she will emerge from the darkness and sorrow and enslavement and walk the sublit ways of peace and joy and freedom. Such a country is Ireland. No land on earth has borne a heavier burden of sorrow and suffering than she, no land has a longer roll of martyrs and lovers, no land can tell a more inspiring story to her children, no land has made a more sustained, unyielding struggle in defence of her God-given heritage of freedom, no land has given greater evidence of a true desire for justice, knowledge and truth, no land has proclaimed its faith in God so constantly under every form of trial or clung so tenaciously to its love of the right. You and I should have more faith in Ireland, and we can only have that by learning to love her better, and we can only do that by going back over the hard ways she has trod in her journey through the centuries to the present day. If we make ourselves acquainted with the sufferings of the common people of our name and race and blood we will still believe in Ireland's ultimate destiny, in spite of the defections of leaders and the disheartening example of those belonging to us who followed in the footsteps of Judas. It is not enough to love Ireland physically, to be enamoured of her hills and her lakes and her green fields and the seas around her shores; we must learn to love her spiritually or our allegiance will wane and our enthusiasm will die in the face of storm and seeming defeat. We must have a true and full knowledge of her history, we must know her language, we must prize her music, her art, her customs, her games, her pastimes, her literature, her legends, not because they are as good as any others in the world, but because they belong to her and to us. We must emulate her humble and unknown martyrs, the people who stood by her 'in dark and evil days,' even when leaders they had idolised went astray and left her to walk the road alone. Their faith must be ours, their love must flow into our hearts, their courage and hope must be in our minds, and if they are we shall look upon a repulse in battle as a repulse only and not as a defeat followed by despair. It is despair, the despair of ignorance, that kills nations and causes. Today there is need for faith in the future of Ireland's cause, there is need for love of her and all that belongs to her. Her very nationality is in danger, and those who will defend and save it must have unquestening faith and boundless love in their hearts. They must place these two shining lights before the distracted children of the Motherland and keep them bright and glowing until the road of truth is clearly seen by all and followed without faltering to the end - the glad end of a persecuted people's long pilgrimage to unfettered freedom and lasting peace. Source: 'Wolfe Tone Annual 1955' From a review by THOMAS DAVIS of William Carleton's 'Tales and Sketches Illustrating the Irish Peasantry', 1845 "There are (thank God) four hundred thousand Irish children in the National Schools. A few years, and they will be the People of Ireland - the farmers or its lands, the conductors of its traffic, the adepts in its arts. How utterly unlike that Ireland will be to the Ireland of the Penal Laws, of the Volunteers, of the Union, or of the Emancipation? Well may Carleton say that we are in a transition state. The knowledge, the customs, the superstitions, the hopes of the People are entirely changing. There is neither use nor reason in lamenting what we must infallibly lose. Our course is in the pen, and a great one, and will try us severely; but, be it well or ill, we cannot resemble our fathers. No conceivable effort will get the people, twenty years hence, to regard the Aairies but as a beautiful fiction to be cherished, not believed in, and not a few real and human characters are perishing as fast as the Fairies. Let us be content to have the past chronicled wherever it cannot be preserved. Much may be saved - the Gaelic language and the music of the past may be handed uncorrupted to the future but whatever may be the substitutes, the Fairies and the Banshees, the Poor Scholar and the Ribbonman, the Orange Lodge, the Illicit Still, the Faction Fight are vanishing into history, and unless this generation paints them no other will know what they were." Grandma and the Family Tree There's been a change in Grandma, we've noticed her of late, She's always reading history or jotting down some date. She's tracking back the family, we'll all have pedigrees. Oh, Grandma's got a hobby, she's climbing Family Trees. Poor Grandpa does the cooking and now, or so he states, That worst of all, he has to wash the cups and dinner plates. Grandma can't be bothered, she's busy as a bee Compiling genealogy - for the Family Tree. She has no time to baby-sit, the curtains are a fright, No buttons left on Grandad's shirt, the flower bed's a sight. She's given up her club work, the serials on TV, The only thing she does nowadays is climb the Family Tree. She goes down to the courthouse and studies ancient lore, We know more about our forebears than we ever knew before . The books are old and dusty, they make poor Grandma sneeze, A minor irritation when you're climbing Family Trees. The mail is all for Grandma, it comes from near and far, Last week she got the proof she needs to join the DAR. A worthwhile avocation, to that we all agree, A monumental project, to climb the Family Tree. Now some folks came from Scotland and some from Galway Bay, Some were French as pastry, some German, all the way. Some went on west to stake their claim, some stayed near by the sea, Grandma hopes to find them all as she climbs the Family Tree. She wanders through the graveyard in search of date or name, The rich, the poor, the in-between, all sleeping there the same . She pauses now and then to rest, fanned by a gentle breeze That blows above the Fathers of all our Family Trees. There were pioneers and patriots mixed in our kith and kin Who blazed the paths of wilderness and fought through thick and thin. But none more staunch than Grandma, whose eyes light up with glee Each time she finds a missing branch for the Family Tree. Their skills were wide and varied, from carpenter to cook And one (Alas!) the record shows was hopelessly a crook. Blacksmith, weaver, farmer, judge, some tutored for a fee, Long lost in time, now all recorded on the Family Tree. To some it's just a hobby, to Grandma it's much more, She knows the joys and heartaches of those who went before. They loved, they lost, they laughed, they wept, and now for you and me They live again in spirit, around the Family Tree. At last she's nearly finished and we are each exposed. Life will be the same again, this we all supposed! Grandma will cook and sew, serve cookies with our tea. We'll all be fat, just as before that wretched Family Tree. Sad to relate, the Preacher called and visited for a spell, We talked about the Gospel, and other things as well, The heathen folk, the poor and then - 'twas fate, it had to be, Somehow the conversation turned to Grandma and the Family Tree. We tried to change the subject, we talked of everything But then in Grandma's voice we heard that old familiar ring. She told him all about the past and soon was plain to see The preacher, too, was nearly snared by Grandma and the Family Tree. He never knew his Grandpa, his mother's name was ... Clark? He and Grandma talked and talked, outside it grew quite dark. We'd hoped our fears were groundless, but just like some disease, Grandma's become an addict - she's hooked on Family Trees! Our souls were filled with sorrow, our hearts sank with dismay, Our ears could scarce believe the words we heard our Grandma say, "It sure is a lucky thing that you have come to me, I know exactly how it's done, I'll climb your Family Tree!" ~ Author Unknown ~ Sending Email If you have suggestions or comments, you may email the Web Mistress by clicking on the following: Debbie Romilly "Please Bookmark this site and check back often. This site will try to freqnently add new things." 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