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Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

New Parish Register Resource

In St Audoen’s parish church, Dublin, next Wednesday evening, the Director of the National Archives, John McDonough, will launch the List of Church of Ireland Parish Registers – an online colour–coded resource featuring live hyperlinks.

This is a listing of all Church of Ireland parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials – noting what survives, the dates covered, and where they are located. Where registers were destroyed in the fire in the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922, the list records details of abstracts and transcripts and where they are held.

The original list was compiled in the 1950s by Margaret Griffith, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. In the ensuing decades the list was annotated by PROI staff and from the 1980s, when the RCB Library, with the agreement of the National Archives, began to actively collect Church of Ireland registers in the Republic of Ireland, the updating of the list was carried out by Library staff in conjunction with the National Archives and Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. The project to turn this into a comprehensive online listing was an initiative of Dr Susan Hood, who has recently taken over as Librarian & Archivist in the RCB Library.

The new online version of the list brings together all the previous work into an accessible, colour–coded resource. Additionally, it now includes live hyperlinks to other websites holding indexes, transcripts and scanned images of parish registers. A subsequent phase of this project will see the list linked to the RCB Library’s detailed in–house hand lists of parish record collections, including not only registers but also other records such as vestry minute books, preachers’ books, accounts and parish magazines.

In producing this new resource, the RCB Library has collaborated with the Irish Genealogical Research Society as a project to celebrate the latter’s 80th anniversary. Widely known for her online genealogy blog, Irish Genealogy News, Claire Santry, a Fellow of the IGRS, painstakingly reworked the list to create a one–stop search tool that links easily to online information.

Tomorrow (Sunday) the Bishop of Clogher, the Rt Revd John McDowell, will preach at a Service of Thanksgiving in Drumully parish church at which a new roof will be dedicated. Drumully is part of a group of parishes based on Galloon where the rector is the Revd Anita Kerr. In St Macartan’s cathedral, Clogher, on the eve of the opening of the William Carleton Summer School, Gemma Price will give a harp recital of the works of Thomas Moore who was a contemporary of Carleton. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Michael Jackson, will speak about the 1916 centenary commemorations at the Summer School on Monday and on Wednesday, local historian and St Macartan’s stalwart, Jack Johnston, will reflect on 25 years of the Summer School.

On Thursday evening the St Barrahane’s Church Festival of Music continues in Castletownshend, Co. Cork, where the recital will be given by Karina Gallagher (violin) and Aiveen Gallagher (viola).

The performers in the lunchtime recital in Sandford parish church, Ranelagh, on Friday will be Aisling Kenny (soprano) and Judith Gannon (piano). In the evening, at 7.30pm, in North Strand parish church, the Archbishop of Dublin will institute the Revd Garth Bunting to the incumbency of Drumcondra, North Strand and St Barnabas. Mr Bunting was ordained in 1999 and served in the Dioceses of Derry and Connor. Since 2010 he has been Residential Priest Vicar in Christ Church cathedral, Dublin.

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