Long & Short Birth Certificates? What is the difference?

A Long Birth Certificate is not about the length of the document, but about the CONTENT of the birth certificate.

A long form birth certificate has a person's name, date of birth, place of birth, parent's names and address.

Depending on when the birth was registered it may have one parent's occupation, or both.

The certificate itself tended to be a rectangular shape in varying sizes through the years from 1864.

Short Birth Certificates were A5 in size and ONLY contained a person's name, date of birth, place of birth and no more.

With computerisation of birth, death and marriage records in Ireland in 2004, short birth certificates were no longer issued, all certificates were issued in A4 format, and records registered from April 2004 were no longer recorded by hand in phyiscal Registers.

Short certificates are no longer used and are not acceptable for passport application.

Mystery Surrounds Burren Settlement Excavated by Archaeologists

When a prehistoric people built a large settlement in the Burren up to 3,000 years ago, why did they choose a mountain-top with no running water?

Was it the closest point to a sky god, or was the location selected for some type of ancient gathering or “Dáil”?

“Truly one of the most enigmatic places in Irish prehistory” is how NUI Galway (NUIG) archaeologist Dr Stefan Bergh describes the exposed summit of Turlough Hill in northeast Clare.

His team secured Royal Irish Academy funding for a three-week excavation of a settlement of some 160 circular huts, bordered by a large burial cairn and two large labyrinthine enclosures of stone.

Turlough Hill, overlooking Galway Bay to the north and west and the Slieve Aughty mountains to the east, is the only Burren summit to have evidence of hilltop residence.

It is one of only two of its type on the island, with the second being in Co Sligo.

Whereas a typical prehistoric settlement comprises two or three dwellings, this is the size of a “housing estate”. Blue gentians are currently blooming within the foundations of the huts built across two halves of the summit footprint.

Slabs of stone were set along the hut edges, with hazel posts possibly used for skin cover. Most of the huts have a defined entrance or are conjoined with one other in “semi-detached” fashion.

The settlement was not defensive, Dr Bergh believes, although the summit’s distinctive “rim”, comprising an eight-metre-high cliff face, serves as a type of natural “moat”.

The larger of the two enclosures, built some distance from the settlement, is 140m in diameter. It has 10 entrances, and is not a hillfort, Dr Bergh says.

“Its location and construction could suggest that it might have been some sort of gathering place for two different peoples,” he says.

When a prehistoric people built a large settlement in the Burren up to 3,000 years ago, why did they choose a mountain-top with no running water?

Was it the closest point to a sky god, or was the location selected for some type of ancient gathering or “Dáil”?

“Truly one of the most enigmatic places in Irish prehistory” is how NUI Galway (NUIG) archaeologist Dr Stefan Bergh describes the exposed summit of Turlough Hill in northeast Clare.

His team secured Royal Irish Academy funding for a three-week excavation of a settlement of some 160 circular huts, bordered by a large burial cairn and two large labyrinthine enclosures of stone.

Turlough Hill, overlooking Galway Bay to the north and west and the Slieve Aughty mountains to the east, is the only Burren summit to have evidence of hilltop residence.

It is one of only two of its type on the island, with the second being in Co Sligo.

Whereas a typical prehistoric settlement comprises two or three dwellings, this is the size of a “housing estate”. Blue gentians are currently blooming within the foundations of the huts built across two halves of the summit footprint.

Semi-detached

Slabs of stone were set along the hut edges, with hazel posts possibly used for skin cover. Most of the huts have a defined entrance or are conjoined with one other in “semi-detached” fashion.

The settlement was not defensive, Dr Bergh believes, although the summit’s distinctive “rim”, comprising an eight-metre-high cliff face, serves as a type of natural “moat”.

The larger of the two enclosures, built some distance from the settlement, is 140m in diameter. It has 10 entrances, and is not a hillfort, Dr Bergh says.

“Its location and construction could suggest that it might have been some sort of gathering place for two different peoples,” he says.

What is even more curious, in his view, is the absence of a regular water supply, and the fact that the occupiers left little or no trace of their activities.

In excavations of several of the huts over the past three weeks, the team has found samples of charcoal and hazelnut shells, along with a hearth for cooking, but no pottery or toolmaking material to date.

The charcoal and shells will be sent to Uppsala in Sweden for radiocarbon dating, according to site director Dr Ros Ó Maoldúin and site supervisor Dr Noel McCarthy.

Volunteers

“Normally, as archaeologists we focus on the fine detail, but in this case we are analysing the landscape and trying to work out what these people were thinking,” Dr Bergh says.

“Religious beliefs can drive people to extremes, but there might be another purpose for this site.”

The “explicit liminal location at the physical edge of the characteristic Burren landscape” could have offered a “symbolically charged” neutral ground for activities shared with groups based elsewhere, he says.

Dr Bergh’s interest in Turlough Hill was sparked by his work at Mullaghfarna in Sligo, which has the only other known prehistoric hilltop settlement of similar size on the island. It also has about 150 circular house or hut foundations dating from the Neolithic to Bronze Age.

A large lowland settlement of 74 tightly-clustered dwellings has also been located at Corrstown, Co Derry, and dated to the Bronze Age.

Source : Lorna Siggins, The Irish Times

WATCH: Artist Theo Jansen's Incredible Moving Sculptures Could Be On Their Way To Mars

Theo Jansen's incredible moving sculptures have aaccuired him international fame and the attention of NASA who believe his sculptures could be used on the next mission to Mars.

See below a recent report from the BBC about this unique artist.

THE HUMANISTS ARE COMING..........

Photo: Waterford Humanist Celebrant Dr Teresa Graham

There’s no denying that Ireland is a country that’s rapidly becoming more secular.

In Census 2016, the second-largest group after Catholic was “no religion”, with just over 10% of respondents ticking the box, a 73.6% increase on 2011.

Our recent same-sex marriage and abortion referenda have reflected the clash between traditional, Catholic values and emerging social mores that seem to favour individual freedoms over religious definitions of morality.

Humanist marriages were recognised as legal in 2012 and increasing numbers of people are turning away from church-led rituals, opting for humanist ceremonies to mark life’s big moments with weddings, naming ceremonies, and memorial funeral services.

Dr Teresa Graham is a humanist celebrant from Tramore, Co Waterford.

A counselling psychologist, she’s relatively new to her humanist work, but is kept very busy travelling the country in her new role: 2017 was her first full year as a celebrant, and in those 52 weeks she presided over 75 weddings, even putting in a cameo in RTÉ’s wedding reality TV show Don’t Tell The Bride, for Kilkenny couple Jennifer and Rob’s unusual Christmas-themed August wedding.

From divorcees who can’t wed in a church to same-sex couples to committed atheists, couples are opting for humanist ceremonies for a wide variety of reasons, says Dr Graham.

“There are those who come from different religious backgrounds, where it would be difficult to decide on a religious ceremony to suit both families,” she says.

We also have wedding tourism since the marriage referendum: I have quite a few same-sex couples who can’t get married in the North of Ireland.

"The demographic varies. Lots of couples are in their early thirties, although I’ve done a ceremony for hippies in their sixties: All the music was the Beatles and it was in a garden on a beautiful summer’s day, with flowery dresses and guitars. That was lovely.”

If there’s one thing religion does well, it’s ritual, which is perhaps why so many lapsed Catholics return to church for weddings, christenings, and funerals; a 2010 Bishops’ Conference survey found 10% of Irish people who describe themselves as Catholic don’t believe in God, while 8% said they “never” attended church apart from attending ceremonies.

Humanist celebrants like Dr Graham use a number of symbolic rituals that couples can choose to mark the solemnity of the occasion in their ceremony, along with music and scripted passages of speech.

“Unity candles are nice,” she says. “A member of each family lights a candle representing the families, and when the couple have taken their vows, they move the flames to a single candle.

"Or you can use the same symbolism by blending two containers of sand, which is a good one for couples who have children from different relationships, who are literally blending their families.”
Tree planting or the ancient Celtic practice of handfasting are also popular options.

It’s not always a bed of roses when the wishes of the couple are pitted against the traditional expectations of family, though, and Dr Graham finds her experience as a counsellor invaluable in negotiating the various needs and expectations of families.

“I’ve had couples cancel because family members wouldn’t attend a non-religious ceremony,” she says.

Some couples come under pressure to include a religious blessing in their ceremony: “My attitude to that is that they can do what they want after I finish up my part, or I can also put a bit in saying the couple want to acknowledge their respect and gratitude for the different traditions that raised them; it’s about allowing a respectful space for people to do what they want to do.”

Dr Graham also conducts naming ceremonies and memorial services, and although these have yet to become as popular as weddings, she says offering consolation to bereaved families is a rewarding element of her work.

“Maybe I shouldn’t really say I enjoy memorial services, but I do,” she says.

“Because the service is so personal and constructed by family members, it seems to be very consoling for the people who are left.”

Humanism is a philosophy rather than a religion, and most humanists are also atheist.
Religious funerals usually hinge on offering consolation to family members through the belief they will be reunited with loved ones in the afterlife; is it challenging to offer solace when death is seen as final?

“There’s the consolation of a life lived and a contribution made, and that’s the basic ethos of humanism for me, leaving the world a little bit better than we found it,” says Dr Graham.

“In a memorial service, this is what you talk about: through the pain, that will be remembered.”
For many people, their first encounter with the broader philosophy of humanism will be at a ceremony; Dr Graham herself became interested and signed up as a member of the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) following Michael D Higgins’ presidential inauguration, where humanism was represented as well as several religions.

The HAI is 25 years old this year, and its motto is “compassion, equality, and reason”.

You don’t have to be a member of the HAI to opt for humanist ceremonies.

Philosopher and educator Professor AC Grayling is vice-president of the UK Humanists, an association founded nearly 100 years before its Irish counterpart.

He is involved in UN human rights initiatives, and has written and spoken extensively on humanist philosophy, freedom of speech, and secularism, and against faith schools and sharia law.

He’ll give a guest talk on the ‘Roots and Fruits’ of humanism in Dublin this summer to celebrate 25 years of Irish humanism.

“Humanism is a discussion about ethics, about how we should live and how we should behave,” says Prof Grayling.

“The key point about humanism is that it isn’t a set of do’s and don’ts and thou-shalt-nots, it is an invitation to treat other people with as much sympathy and generosity as we can muster, on the basis of our best understanding of human nature, which is a diverse and complex thing.”

From the Spanish Inquisition to our own history of sectarian violence, religious divides have been the banner under which endless human atrocities have been committed.

Prof Grayling says this is an inevitable result of the abdication of responsibility that comes with a religious mindset, and the antithesis of the humanist approach, which emphasises rational, personal choice rooted in respect for the self and others.

When people don’t think for themselves and instead take a pizza out of the frozen-food-cabinet of ideas, the results for the world are disastrous. What we get are divisions, great cruelty, and harm.

In the 25 years since the HAI was founded, Ireland has undergone enormous change.
The association has been involved with numerous campaigns to further secularise Irish society.

Prof Grayling’s memories of his first visits to Ireland 40 years ago are of a country where the Catholic Church was “incredibly powerful. There were very large families and it was incredibly poor, and the grip of the church was incredibly tight.

"But in recent decades the change in atmosphere and the opening up of freedom that individuals have and the scepticism about the church has been remarkable to notice.”

As the population of the planet grows and our ability to share resources effectively and peacefully is further tested, Prof Grayling says: “We need humanism more than ever.”

“I am responsible for myself; good relationships are at the heart of the good life; we are part of the human family and we share many things in common but there is also much diversity and therefore I must be both understanding and tolerant.

"These are simple things, but very deep and they are at the heart of the humanistic outlook. If people adhered to them, the world would be a vastly better place.”

Source: Ellie O'Byrne, Irish Examiner

The Honeymoon Party? Is This The Latest Wedding Gimmick?

Ever get a wedding invite and the ominous thud of it on the doormat puts you in mind of a jury duty notice or an electricity bill?

No wonder: according to a recent survey by One4All, Irish guests pay an average of €643 on outfits, transport, reception drinks, accommodation and gifts, just to attend a wedding.

UK research by Provident goes one better, noting that guests have to shell out about £1,015 just to be a wedding guest (double for a wedding abroad). And everyone has at least one year where the entire social circle falls like dominoes and a dozen wedding invites come at an alarming clip.

That weddings can be a pricey endeavour for guests isn’t really news, but a recent addition to the entire fandango might be.

Now, though, “honeymoon parties” are being added to the traditional engagement party, hen party weekend and post-wedding BBQ fandango. “What is a honeymoon party?” you may reasonably ask.

It’s an evening event, often happening in a bride’s or bridesmaid’s home, where female guests enjoy the same merriment and libations as in a hen party, except they are invited to bring a gift that the bride can enjoy on her honeymoon.

Honeymoon parties are not replacing the popular hen party; rather, they’re replacing the old kitchen party from decades ago (which, of course, was replaced by the hen party. It’s fine, we’re all confused).

Tradition dictated that “older” married women would teach a young bride about what might happen on their wedding night. Yet the objective of today’s honeymoon party, it would seem, is to ensure that a bride doesn’t have to befall a last-minute dash to Boots for suncream.

Unreal imagination
“Years ago brides would receive gifts for their new kitchen the night before their wedding, but most couples already cohabitate by now,” says Hyde. “Often, brides will receive really thoughtful things like a travel bag, or a hair-care product pack. Sometimes, it’s unreal the imagination that people go to.

“Often mothers, grannies, under-18s and pregnant friends are not invited to the hen – who wants their granny seeing them take a pole-dancing class? – so basically they are invited to this so that everyone feels included and can enjoy the run-up to the wedding.”

Surely, I say, a honeymoon party is just another excuse to shake down guests for yet another gift?
“No one person is being shaken down as there won’t really be an overlap of people there,” says Hyde. “The bridesmaid might have to take a hit.

“I think when you’re in the zone and getting married, there’s a lot of excitement. Besides, a lot of the gifts for honeymoon parties can be under €10. To be fair to a lot of brides, they don’t go in for all the events, or they might keep some of them more low-key.”

Fifty years ago many Irish couples would marry in the morning, enjoy a wedding breakfast with family and friends, and most people would go back to work afterwards.

Fast-forward to the present day, and marriage is nowhere near the massive life step it once was. It’s an institution with a built-in escape hatch (divorce rates in Ireland are remarkably low compared with the US and UK, working out at 0.6 per 1,000 marriages, according to Eurostat, but still).

And yet, the idea of an excessive, lavish wedding with many different components is now entirely acceptable. It helps to feed into the cultural conceit that marriage is somehow an accomplishment, or a sign that you’re doing the whole adulting thing properly.

Kardashianised
While marriage isn’t the institution it once was, weddings – whether you’re a customer care rep from Cork or a legal secretary in Carlow – are now treated with the gravitas and reverence of a medieval royal union.

The entire event has become Kardashianised, and it’s rare to find brides who can withstand the siren-song of it all, especially if everyone else in their social circle has opted in.

During the leaner, post-Celtic Tiger years, a profligate wedding was gauche and tasteless, but such concerns seem to have ebbed away.

Yet once we unlock another level of wedding-related excess – the post-wedding BBQ, the hen party weekend, the weeklong wedding celebration – it’s astonishing how quickly it becomes the new normal.

There are multiple experiences for the bride now,” concedes Hyde. “We’re also starting to see a rise in ‘mother of the bride’ parties, where mums will hold a garden party for her own friends and a generic gift is brought for the mother.

Oftentimes, brides will have a spa weekend with their bridesmaids and then a girlie dinner with a week to go before the big day.

There’s often a ‘postmortem’ event after the honeymoon, where the bridal party can talk about the big day. It certainly wasn’t the way of it when I was getting married. Now most of my clients have a two-day wedding. I think some people do feel the [financial] pressure and it can be a lot of put on someone’s shoulders.”

Yet perhaps Irish brides, and their bridesmaids, have a breaking point. “We don’t have the bridal shower thing happening in Ireland, at least not yet,” says Hyde. “I do know a few people who tried to get them off the ground here and started a bridal shower business, but it didn’t quite happen. I think the honeymoon party is the closest thing we’ll get to that.”

Source: Tanya Sweeney, The Irish Times

Boy George's Family Role in Irish War of Independence Revealed in BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?

Viewers in Ireland may be interested in the subject of this week's episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?

Broadcast at 9pm on BBC 1 on Monday 23rd July the episode features Eighties popstar, Boy George, who was born George Alan O'Dowd, in 1961 in London to Irish parents.

The BBC series of Who Do You Think You Are? - which inspired a new generation of amateur genealogists researching their Family Tree -  is surprisingly now in its 15th series, while a US version is in its 10th season and the Aussie series on season 9.

RTE did produce an Irish strand of the show back in 2008 but it only ran for two seasons, most probably influenced by the small number of Irish celebrity subjects with sufficiently engaging skeletons in their historical family closets.

In this episode Boy George travels to Ireland where he learns for the first time how his great uncle Thomas Bryan had been an active member of the Irish Republican Army, and was charged with treason for his role in an attempted attack on a police truck in Drumcondra, Dublin, in 1921.

The pop star's ancestor was 23 when he became one of a group of men executed at Mountjoy Prison and buried in unmarked graves on unconsecrated ground. They would come to be known as the 'Forgotten Ten'.

Boy George, 57, was deeply troubled to learn how Thomas' widow - the star's great aunt - had been pregnant with Thomas' only child at the time of his arrest, but that the child did not survive.

The Culture Club singer  tells the cameras he is 'overwhelmed' to learn the 'incredible story' of his ancestor's link to such a dark period in Irish history

'I’m proud and I’m sad. I think that is the best way to describe how I feel,' he says.

Following a campaign by the families that lasted some 80 years the Forgotten Ten, which also included Kevin Barry - the first Irish Republican to be killed by the British since the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916 - were exhumed and buried with full state honours in 2001.

George's maternal great grandfather Richard Glynn, who was in the British Army, married his brother’s widow Mary-Jane. Mary-Jane had a daughter, Annie, from her first marriage, who married Thomas.

See the full story on BBC 1, Monday 23rd July 2018 at 9pm.

Meghan Markle's Missing Irish Branch of Family Tree Revealed

Meghan Markle was presented with documents detailing an Irish ancestor during her visit to Dublin with Prince Harry.

The young duchess discovered she is descended from a young Belfast woman named Mary, who married an English soldier in Dublin after a possible "whirlwind romance" almost 200 years ago.

Different spellings of Mary's surname resulted in some genealogists assuming she was born in Co Galway, but a number of documents found during a formal search have now established she was born in the Belfast region.

Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss, genealogists with The Irish Family History Centre in Dublin, compiled the information from her father's side of the family tree. It was given to Meghan during the couple's visit to EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.

Marriage records show that Mary McCue (McHugh) was living at Merrion Strand in Dublin when she married Thomas Bird, a private in the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment of Foot, in Saint Mary's Church of Ireland church in Donnybrook in Dublin on Monday, January 23, 1860

Thomas had served in the army in India in the previous decade and he was living in a barracks near Donnybrook in Dublin at the time of the marriage.

The local papers reported that a hurricane had struck Ireland the previous weekend.

"And it must have been a whirlwind romance," said Ms Fitzsimons.
"Thomas's regiment had only recently returned from India after 10 years. They arrived in Dublin in August, 1859 and were stationed in Beggars Bush Barracks," she said.

Mary's father's name was listed in the marriage register as Francis McCue with an occupation of farmer. The groom's father was listed as a labourer.

In June 1860, the regiment was sent to Malta. Thomas and Mary caught a train from Kingstown, present day Dun Laoghaire, to Queenstown, now Cobh, where they boarded the steam ship Olympus.

On board the voyage to Malta were 573 members of the regiment, including 16 drummers, and 66 women and 67 children.

The regiment was stationed on the Mediterranean island until 1866. The couple had at least two children: Mary, the duchess's great-great-grandmother; and Harriett.

In March 1866, the regiment was sent to Canada. The long journey to New Brunswick in Canada may have taken its toll on Thomas who died in July 1866, aged 36.

In May 1867, Mary married a widower, William White, a soldier in the same regiment. Two years later, the regiment was transferred to Cork but Mary and William decided to remain in Canada.

In the 1871 Canadian census in New Brunswick, Mary White and her two daughters are listed as Irish and Roman Catholic and her husband William as English and a shoemaker who is a member of the Anglican Church.

Mary and William settled on a farm and Mary gave birth to two more children. Their daughter Alexandrine died as a young child. Her baptism listed Mary's surname as McKeg.

Their son William Thomas was born in 1873. The family later moved to New Hampshire in the US.

In 1883, daughter Mary married Charles Merrill in New Hampshire.

Finally, the well-travelled Belfast woman Mary White died of pneumonia, aged in her mid-50s, in New Hampshire on August 28, 1885.

Her son William Thomas died at 17 in Lakeport, New Hampshire, in 1890. His death record states his mother's maiden name was McCue and that she was born in Belfast.

In 1891, when daughter Harriett married, she listed her mother's surname as McCague.

On US census forms in 1930, Harriett stated her mother was born in Northern Ireland.

The genealogists stated: "It is only by searching forward in time, comparing the evidence in later Canadian and US documents, that we found sufficient evidence to say with certainty that Mary McCue's (McHugh's) origins were in Belfast.

"Catholic parish registers start too late for a baptism of Mary McHugh… We found no earlier records for the McHugh/McCue family of Belfast."

Ms Fitzsimons said it was a pleasure researching Mary's story.

"We want to acknowledge Lorna Moloney's work in identifying the family in US records as McCague.

"Often names in official records can be written down by officials as they sound phonetically, which can often lead to different versions of names being recorded." Ms Fitzsimons can be contacted through www.irishfamilyhistorycentre.com.

Ms Moloney, who was not involved in the formal compilation of information, independently did research on Meghan's Irish ancestry links using information available in public records.

She had noted that Mary's daughter in her marriage document had listed her mother as Mary McCague.

Ms Moloney had found a woman with that name who was born in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, in 1829 and there was a certain likelihood it could be the same woman but it was always subject to verification.

Ms Moloney said: "I'm delighted to learn this new information which has now been given to Meghan.

It's a fascinating story."

Source The Irish Independent