Tag Archives: Clare Roots

AS a young man, John Bradley was at the scene of one the greatest tragedies to ever occur in Ennis, when eight people died after a hotel floor collapsed during a busy auction. Now, 60 years after the Carmody’s Hotel disaster, John will launch a new book, remembering those who lost their lives and also those affected by the incident, which sent shockwaves across the country and the world. Next Sunday, January 14, as part of Carmody’s Hotel commemoration ceremony, Clare Roots Society will be launching their first book of 2018, Carmody’s Hotel, Ennis. Mayor of Ennis, Paul Murphy will formally launch the book at 12.30pm at the parish centre at the rear of Ennis Cathedral. The launch will be preceded by a mass of remembrance for the eight people who lost their lives on January 15, 1958. In this book, John has captured details of the Carmody tragedy, using newspaper reports and also through interviews with survivors and people …

A lecture in Kilrush on Tuesday will examine how it has recently become possible to use DNA to identify where in West Clare ancestors of people who live in different parts of the world are from. The Kilrush and District Historical Society’s November lecture is entitled Reconstructing West Clare Family Histories Using DNA. It will be delivered by the society’s PRO, Paddy Waldron, in Teach Ceoil. “In recent years, it has become possible and affordable to use DNA comparisons to break down brick walls in ancestral research,” Paddy Waldron explained. “This talk will begin by briefly outlining the different inheritance paths of different components of DNA. “Y-DNA, for example, can shed light on the origins of Clare surnames, while comparing autosomal DNA has helped members of the Irish diaspora, from Sandy Hook to California to New Zealand, to identify the precise townlands in West Clare from which their mystery ancestors emigrated,” he added. Paddy Waldron has long been an avid …