Free Lecture Recordings

After the Annual General Meeting (held via Zoom) on Saturday, 16th May 2026, the post-AGM lecture was given by Valerie Adams, Librarian and Archivist of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland. The talk was titled: "'Lesser known sources for family history", focusing on material held primarily at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

The lecture, fully illustrated with PowerPoint slides, is a fascinating journey exploring the content of the lesser-known archival sources for Irish genealogy and where to find them.

Valerie was an archivist at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) for over 30 years. At the time of her retirement in 2009 she was Head of Strategic Development. She is an acknowledged expert on the historical collections of PRONI and has over the years lectured on them widely in Ireland, the UK, and internationally. In January 2010 she took up a post as librarian and archivist for the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland (PHSI). She was appointed MBE for services to archives in Northern Ireland 2024.

After the Annual General Meeting (held via Zoom) on Saturday, 17th May 2025, the post-AGM lecture was given by Dr Ciarán Reilly, an historian of 19th & 20th century Irish History at the Department of History, Maynooth University. He is also Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates. Dr Reilly's talk was titled: "'A catalogue of evicted tenants': The Great Famine eviction database"‘.

During the years of the Great Irish Famine more than a quarter of a million families were removed from the land and evicted. No part of the country was immune from eviction. Whole townlands were cleared and erased from the landscape in what was a near daily occurrence. In this illustrated lecture, Dr Ciaran Reilly will highlight where people were evicted from and focussing on data from almost 2,000 evictions sites, insights will be given as to how the story of eviction during the Famine can be used for genealogical purposes.

Dr Reilly is the author of a number of books about an Gorta Mór, the Great Hunger,  including "John Plunket Joly and the Great Famine in King’s County", published in 2012; "The Irish Land Agent, 1830-1860" published in 2014; and "Strokestown and the Great Famine" published the same year. He is also co-editor of "Women and the Great Hunger in Ireland" published in 2017; "The Famine Irish: Emigration and the Great Hunger in 2016"; "The Land Agent, 1700-1920" in 2018, and "Dublin and the Great Famine" published in 2022.  

After the Annual General Meeting (held via Zoom) on Saturday, 11th May, the post-AGM lecture was given by Sharon Hintze, member of the IGRS Library Committee. Sharon's talk was titled: ‘Leading the Way: Michael Leader's Transcripts of County Cork Church of Ireland Parishes’. It concerns the project to digitise the Society’s extensive collection of transcripts of parish records for Co. Cork compiled by the late Michael Leader, a former Vice President of the IGRS

Michael worked periodically over a period of 40 years transcribing Church of Ireland parish registers to support his personal family research. After his death in 1998, his papers were given to the IGRS. These have rested in storage for 25 years but now the transcriptions and accompanying pedigrees are nearing publication. Sharon will describe the detailed work tht has been done to prepare these materials for publication and what has been learned from it.

About Sharon Hintze:

Sharon Hintze was born on a US Army base during WW2. She was educated in mathematics at Brigham Young University and the University of Warwick. Her professional life was working for multinational food manufacturers in four countries. She has been interested in family history since she was a teenager. Fourteen of her sixteen great grandparents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe and walked the thousand miles from the Missouri River to Salt Lake City before there was a railroad connection.

Another great grandfather also walked the thousand miles to Utah, but as a member of the US Army sent in 1857 to bring the supposedly rebellious 'Mormons' under control.  This man is Sharon's only Irish ancestor, a Presbyterian from Banbridge. James McClean had left Ireland during the famine years. He married a young woman from Wales who as a child had walked the thousand miles with her mother as part of a handcart company formed of those who could not afford animals or wagons.  This couple had five daughters, all of whom learned to sew well as a way to earn a living.

With this background it is not surprising that Sharon is a fifth-generation family historian.  She has served in various family history assignments for her church, the longest spell being twenty years as Director of a large FamilySearch Centre in central London.  She is currently reprising that role albeit on a smaller, post-Covid scale.

After the Annual General Meeting (held via Zoom) on Saturday, 20th May, the post-AGM lecture was given by Dr Ciarán Wallace, deputy-director of the Beyond 2022-Project, which is the body behind the Virtual Record Treasury (VRT), launched in June last year. Dr Wallace’s talk was titled: ‘Virtual Treasury 101: Records, Resources and Research’ and it is an update about the growth of material now to be found in the Virtual Record Treasury.

The VRT represents a project to identify surrogates (in all their myriad forms) for original material destroyed by the fire which consumed the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922. It aims to make this material available online digitally and without charge.

Ciarán's lecture (which you can watch now by clicking on the video link) takes the form of a tour of the Virtual Treasury, showing some major collections and hidden corners; and pointing out the supporting essays and articles which explain and give context for particular groups of records. Using relevant examples, he demonstrates how to search and browse for records, filter results and how to search within a document.

Link to talk handout