Our Ireland

My name is Mervina, I live in British Columbia,Canada. My ancestry is in Ireland. My Fathers people were 'CARSON my Grandmother's people were Connolly.

We had spelling for Conoly and another Connoly. My Great-Great Grandfather and G.G. Grandmother took a chance and came to Canada. They farmed in Ontario for awhile I believe all the children were born there. His Name was John Carson and her name was Jane Adelaide Kergan. They had a real tough time I can be sure of. They had 10 children, some stayed in Ontario,most went to saskatchewan Homestead. They were offered land there but it was extremely hard, below freezing in the winter and hot, hot in the summer. Plus in the summer you have fight the Bugs off. There they made a life for themselves and survived.

My G-G-Grandparents are buried in the Yorkton Cemetery,Yorkton,Sask. I've been back several times ,just to give my respect's. One of their sons ,my Grandfather, his name is Adam Mervin Carson died in 1918 of the Spanish Influenza. He left a wife and four young children. I don't know how they made it. I am sure if I ever get ready to tackle the Carson's Family Search it should be very interesting.....

I've not visited Ireland yet, but it is my desire too. When we were growing up we referred to it as the OLD COUNTRY. Ireland.

Mervina

I always enjoy the emails from Our Ireland visitors. Sometimes people just want to say hello and keep up the good work, others contribute to the site; see the Flanagan and O'Brien free Irish clan Webpages. (You can get a free Irish Clan Webpage too!)

Essie sent me this email; she's from Cork originally and is a Callaghan. Essie is looking for other Callaghan's to contact her (email me for Essie's contact email or comment on this post).

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Hello Peter

Well I have no stories to tell. I just love the place where I was born. It was Cork City in Ireland during 1936. I like to keep in touch with anyone who is Irish .My name is O'Callaghan and if anyone out there knows of any other Callaghan's or O Callaghan's who may be related I would like to hear from them. I have no family that I know of. I love life. Thanks Peter for letting have this space.

Good Luck. God Bless

Essie, it might help other Callaghan's to let us know where in the world you are, you can comment to this post with your Country and county/state.

Best of luck,
Peter.

So, the first article Researching Car Insurance in Ireland gives some info about how to start your insurance quotations search, the main insurance providers in the Irish motor insurance market and some things to look out for before deciding which insurance company you go with.

Passing The NCT First Time gives a run down on how to prepare for your NCT and what the testers will look out for.

My last NCT was a complete disaster: The front outside passenger side handle stopped working a day before the test, the driver side handle actually came off in my hand (door was frozen). The tester had to climb into the back seat to get into the drivers seat before bringing the car around for the test! I'll never forget the puzzled look on his face. Needless to say the car failed with flying colours but I still smile when I think about it...(was not funny at the time I can tell you.)

I'll add more articles to this section in time (they are listed on Driving In Ireland). If you have any advice about sourcing car insurance in Ireland or going for your National Car Test leave a comment.

New Irish Book Reviews Added:

• Fionnuala MacCurtain's Remember It's For Ireland: A Family Memoir of Tomas MacCurtain
• Professor Richard English's 'Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland'

Contact Ireland's Leading Independent Irish and Celtic Book Supplier:

Gregory Carr, Independent Bookseller
Read Ireland 
392 Clontarf Road,
Clontarf, Dublin 3, Ireland
Tel & Fax: +353-1-853-2063

email: gregcarr@readireland.ie
Please visit the Read Ireland website: www.readireland.com

If you have any feedback or suggestions for this section of the Our Ireland website feel free to comment on this post.

While researching some statistics for a project I came across the listings for Average Industrial Earnings in Ireland listed from 1998 - 2005.

The figures are disturbing because they suggest wide-scale discrimination of a large part of the Irish workforce based on gender and gender alone. The figures consistently speak for themselves, here's the latest for 05:

2005 figures:

• Adult Males - 609.91 euro
• Adult Females - 430.23 euro

How, in this day and age, can a 'civilized' and 'equal opportunities' nation discriminate against such a large section of our society? Surely this is state sanctioned. I'm hardly the first person to notice the huge gap in earnings between the genders, someone in government must surely have added 'one-n-one' together. If government has not put a stop to this obvious discrimination of women in the Irish workforce I'd call that state sanctioned (or am I crazy). And is the bottom-line so important to employers in this country that they are prepared to rip-off their female employees? To deny them an fair share for their efforts? Doubtless there are many men and women represented in these figures that do the exact same job, with the same educational qualifications and responsibilities.

For the full list from 1998 follow this link to the CSO. http://www.cso.ie/statistics/indearnings.htm .

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The Sitemap page has finally been added. This will help you navigate the site and get to what you're looking for faster.

Also, I've do a little work on the Irish History page. I will continue to work on this over this week as there's plenty more that can go there.

General clean up and updates of existing pages is under way, also I've an article or two in the pipeline. Will keep you updated.

Peter

Hello all,
Some of you may have noticed a couple of changes on Our Ireland over the past couple of weeks. We've a couple of advertisers who signed up and decided to give us a shot. Please be kind enough to click on their links on the homepage if you think their offerings might be of some interest to you.
Here they are to date:

• Kerry Entrepreneur Development for people wishing to set-up or invest in businesses in Kerry
• Fios Feasa - This educational software is a fun way to learn the Irish language, excellent for beginners and children
• Annascaul Pottery is completely handmade and decorated Irish pottery. Beautiful range and each one is an individual

I know all these guys personally and can't recommend them enough, so check them out.

Anyone interested in running an ad or two on Our Ireland can email me at business@our-ireland.com or you can usually reach me during the day on +353 (0) 669157944 (but email is better).