Search Ireland, Histories & Reference Guides

Publications about the social history of your ancestor’s home are useful in creating a full narrative about your ancestor’s life and how your ancestor lived. The various titles provide images of iconic landmarks in Ireland as well as descriptions of townlands and local people. You may not gain a large amount of genealogical details from these book. However, search for your surname and you may discover great achievements or histories about those who held the same name.

Here is a sample of some of the publications you will discover in this collection:

• Album of Ireland

Published by Thomas J Coleman & Co. in Dublin, this title includes 53 etchings of people and places throughout Ireland including O’Connell Bridge, Dublin; Wicklow Mountains; Blarney Castle, Cork; and Giant’s Causeway, Antrim.

• A Little Tour of Ireland

Enjoy a tour through Dublin, Galway, Connemara, Athlone, Limerick, Killarney, Cork, and more with this descriptive text and numerous illustrations. The illustrations were created by John Leech who previously illustrated Punch magazine. A Little Tour of Ireland was first published in 1859 under the pseudonym an Oxonian, which means a former member of Oxford University. The author is, in fact, Samuel Reynolds Hole. During his journey through Ireland, Hole described his experience in Clifden, a coastal town in Galway, as:

‘We were on Irish ground; the stillness and the solitude so wildly broken, encourages all our superstitious fancies; and everything we had read or heard of Bogies, Banshees, Kelpies, and Co., came back to our astonied [sic] souls. Were we, really, to witness something supernatural at last, something, which, when we got home, should make the teeth of our neighbours chatter, and cause the hair to stank up on our relations’ heads? ‘

• Ireland in Pictures

This was published in 1898 by Honourable John F Finerty of Chicago to commemorate the Rebellion of 1798. It is a collection of photographs of places, buildings, and people in Ireland. The photographs depict life in 19th century Ireland. The captions provide a short history of the town or landmark depicted in the image.

• The Tourist’s Picturesque Guide to Ireland

In 1885, W E Wakeman published this guide to Ireland. Wakeman also wrote Three Days on the Shannon, Handbook of Irish Antiquities, and Guide to Lough Erne. The introduction provides a history beginning with ancient Ireland and the time of Tuatha-De-Danaan. The first 80 pages examines sites in Dublin. Wakeman also explores places further from Dublin including Malahide, Dundalk, Rostrevor, Lough Corrib, Killarney, Kildare, and more.

• A Little Tour in Ireland, published 1859
• A Patriot Prelate, the Late Most. Rev. Dr. Duggan, Bishop of Clonfert 1872-1896, published 1917
• Album of Ireland
• An Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Settlement under King William, published 1786
• Archaeologia Hibernica, a Handbook of Irish Antiquities, Pagan and Christian, published 1848
• Croasdaile's History of Rosenallis, Co. Laois, Ireland, published 1998
• Dublin's Riviera in the Mid 19th Century, published 2000
• Five Years in Ireland 1895-1900, published 1901
• Gerald Fitzgerald, the Great Earl of Kildare (1456-1513), 1933
• History of Ireland, published 1850
• Ireland and England, in the Past and Present, published 1919
• Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church - A History of Ireland and Irish Christianity from the Anglo-

Norman Conquest to the Dawn of the Reformation, published 1897

• Ireland in Pictures, published 1898
• Irish Diamonds, published 1847
• Irish Impressions, published 1919
• Jail Journal, 2nd Edition published 1914
• Life of Daniel O'Connell, The Liberator, his Times - Political, Social and Religious, published 1872
• Literary Life: Essays and Poems, published 1921
• Real Life in Ireland by a Real Paddy, published 1904
• Reminiscences of Sir Charles Cameron C.B&, published 1913
• Report on Pawnbroking in Ireland, published 1838
• The Case for Ireland Re-Stated, to the President of the United States Of America, with Explanatory Historical Points, published 1918
• The Confederation of Kilkenny, published 1905
• The Felon's Track or History of the Attempted Outbreak in Ireland (1843-1848), published 1916
• The Great Famine In Ireland and A Retrospect Of The Fifty Years 1845-1895 with a Sketch of the Present Condition and Future Prospects of the Congested Districts, published 1896
• The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern, published 1848
• The Irish in Britain from the Earliest Times to the Fall and Death of Parnell, published 1892
• The Irish Independence Movement on Tyneside 1919-1921, published 1999
• The Making of Ireland and Its Undoing 1200-1600, published 1908
• The Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, published 1889
• The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, published 1833
• The Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan, published 1854
• The Story of Ireland: A Narrative of Irish History, From the Earliest Ages to the Insurrection of 1867, published 1884
• The Tourist's Picturesque Guide to Ireland, published 1885
• The Wrecks of the Spanish Armada on the Coast of Ireland, from the Geographical Journal,

published 1906

• Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, published 1853
• Weavers & Related Trades, Dublin 1826, published 1998
• Weavers of Prosporous, County Kildare, Balbriggan, County Dublin and Tullamore, County Offaly in Memorials of 1826, published 1998
• Wild Sports of the West, with Legendary Tales and Local Sketches, published 1838