Jackie Gleason born 100 years ago this week

This week we celebrated the centenary of the birth of Jackie Gleason, the famous actor and comedian. He was born in Bushwick, Brooklyn 100 years ago, on February 26th 1916.

Jackie Gleason 1916-1987

His parents were Herbert Walton Gleason (an insurance auditor) and Mae "Maisie" Kelly (from Cork), and they baptised him John Herbert Gleason. Unfortunately, Jackie's childhood was marred by several tragic events. His older brother Clemence died of spinal meningitis when Jackie was only 3 years old. In 1925, when he was 9, his father walked out on the family, just before Christmas, and never returned. And Jackie's mother died in 1935 leaving him destitute and homeless. He was 19 years old with nowhere to go.

Jackie and his parents, living in Brooklyn, in the 1920 US Census

He did a variety of odd jobs - working in a pool hall, as a stunt driver, as a carnival barker, and as a Master of Ceremonies in a local theatre for $4 per night. He was eventually "discovered" by Jack L Warner of Warner Brothers and at age 24 landed a film contract for $250 a week.  Movie roles followed and soon he was enjoying a Hollywood lifestyle, becoming famous for his all night parties in his hotel suite. The Hotel Edison soundproofed his suite out of consideration for its other guests!

However, it was when Jackie turned to television that his fame shot through the roof and he soon became America's most popular comedian, starring in TV shows such as The Life of Riley, The Jackie Gleason Show, and most famously The Honeymooners, in which he played loud-mouthed bus driver Ralph Kramden whose get-rich-quick schemes had to be constantly quelled by his long-suffering wife Alice.

Jackie as Ralph Kramden (with Audrey Meadows)

Jackie was a multi-talented artist and had a photographic memory - he would read the script once and shoot the show later that day. In 1964, he moved production of The Honeymooners from New York to Miami Beach where the Jackie Gleason Theater still stands. He had a variety of famous catch phrases in the show, including "You’re a riot, Alice" and "One of these days, Alice, pow, right in the kisser!"

"You're a riot, Alice!"

He was also a talented composer and singer. His first album Music for Lovers Only holds the record for the album longest in the Billboard Top Ten Charts (153 weeks). He won a Tony Award in 1960 for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (Take Me Along).

Jackie with Irish playwright Brendan Behan
(in his dressing room during Take Me Along)

His portrayal of pool shark Minnesota Fats opposite Paul Newman in The Hustler won him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 1961 Academy Awards. Jackie made all his own trick pool shots, thanks to the many years he spent as a teenager in the pool halls of Brooklyn.

Jackie in The Hustler (1961)

Another of Jackie's most memorable characters was the beleagured Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who appeared in all three Smokey and the Bandit movies (alongside Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields). In one memorable scene he turns to his inept son Junior and says "There is no way, no way, that you could come from my loins. Soon as I get home, the first thing I'm gonna do is punch your momma in the mouth."

Some interesting tidbits about Jackie:

• For many years he would only travel by train following an incident where a plane he was on had to make an emergency landing after losing two engines.
• Jackie had a great interest in the paranormal and was a regular guest on an overnight paranormal radio show in the 1950's.
• Some of his best friends were Humphrey Bogart & Peter Lorre.

Jackie has received several civic honours - he has a place on Brooklyn’s Celebrity Path at Brooklyn Botanic Garden; in 1988 Brooklyn’s real-life Fifth Avenue Bus Depot was renamed The Jackie Gleason Depot; and in 2000, a life-size statue of Jackie Gleason, in uniform as bus driver Ralph Kramden, was installed outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City.

Jackie was married three times and had two daughters (Geraldine & Linda) with his first wife Genevieve Halford. His daughter Linda (born 1942) became an actress and married fellow actor Jason Miller (1939-2001). Their son is the actor Jason Patric.

Jackie passed away on June 24th 1987 at his Florida home. He is buried at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Cemetery in Miami.

Jackie on Miami Beach

According to a family tree on Ancestry, Jackie's great grandfather was a Joel Gleason born in 1808 in Vermont. It would be interesting to find out if there are any male descendants who would be willing to be DNA-tested. This could help clarify where Jackie's Gleason line originated and might connect him to cousins still living today.

Jackie's legacy lives on in his many movies and TV shows, some of which are available on YouTube, like the episode from The Honeymooners below.

Thank you, Jackie! 

"How sweet it is!"

An episode of The Honeymooners: Mind your own business

The Gleesons and 1916

Carrying firewood salvaged from Sackville St, 1916

What were your Gleeson ancestors doing in 1916? 

Why not write about it and send it to us? We can publish it here on the website, or even include it in the book that will follow the Gathering (for now, snappily titled: Proceedings of the Gleeson Clan Gathering 2016).

This year marks the centenary of the Easter Rising 1916 and the events surrounding it. It also presents us with a real opportunity to look to our own family histories and examine how our ancestors interacted with the events of this turbulent time. Were they involved in the Rising? Did they fight at the Battle of the Somme? How did they react to or contribute to events around this time? What influence did it have on the lives of ordinary people? These are fascinating questions and exploring them can reveal some exciting surprises.

The Royal Irish Regiment

In April 1916, my own grandmother was 7 months pregnant in Moore Street, Dublin when the Rising kicked off around the corner in the General Post Office. One of the local children was sent out to see what time it was on Cleary's clock and came running back a minute later shouting that the Germans were shooting everyone in O'Connell Street! It didn't take long for granny to gather her belongings and scuttle around the corner to her sister-in-law's house on Parnell Street where she stayed for the rest of Easter week.

Another of my family died of injuries sustained from artillery fire in the trenches in France in May 1916. He was only 19. He and 49,000 other Irish men died in World War One (that's about 25% of the Irish soldiers who went out to fight).

You can really get a feel for what was going on in 1916 (and how people reacted to it) by reading the newspapers of the day. And the good news is that these have been made freely available online by IrishNewsArchives. You can access all the regional and daily titles in their collection from 1916. This is for a limited time only so check it out while there is still time.

Letter to younger brother of Thomas MacDonagh
(from Cloughjordan, Tipperary) who was executed
in Kilmainham Gaol in May 1916.

The Irish government has set up a dedicated website for the 1916 commemorations (www.Ireland2016.ie). It includes a good overview of the history behind the Easter Rising as well as a Programme of Events planned for around the country. We'll keep you informed of any events that are happening around the time of the Gathering on our Things To Do page. In addition, Google recently launched an interactive tour of the Easter Rising, narrated by Colin Farrell, and focussing on the events in Dublin which sparked subsequent events all around the country. How did these events affect your Gleeson ancestors? 

Trinity College Dublin has a fascinating project called Letters of 1916 that you should check out - it is the first public humanities project in Ireland and is creating a crowd-sourced digital collection of letters written around the time of the Easter Rising. They are building an online collection for the public that will add a new and intimate perspective of the events of the period, providing a glimpse into life in Ireland at this time. There are several featured letters such as the one on the right from James Stephens to Thomas MacDonagh's brother John, a native of Cloghjordan.

If you want to explore more about the history of 1916, there are some great resource available. The Irish Revolution is a collaborative online project between University College Cork and the Irish Examiner. The project aims to "inform and engage readers with a wide variety of authoritative and entertaining content, become a unique educational and research tool for all ages and interests, record the social, cultural and political events that shaped this defining period in our own and wider geo-political history and stimulate debate among all ages - in both English and Irish - as we consider the shape and aspirations of our nation for the next 100 years". Worth checking out.

Another brilliant resource is a completely free online course run by Trinity College Dublin through FutureLearn - Irish Lives in War and Revolution: Exploring Ireland's History 1912-1923. This first ran last year and is about to run again from 14th March. The course asks some pretty tough questions: How do people experience war and revolution? How does political change, violence, total war, affect life in its most basic ways? Looking at Ireland through war and revolution, this course considers these and other questions about Irish life between 1912 and 1923. The course looks beyond the familiar names and the famous faces – the traditional histories can tell us about them. Instead, it explores how the events that shaped the nature of modern Ireland - the Great War, the Easter Rising, the Irish war of independence and civil war - were experienced by the people who lived through them or in spite of them.

There is also an ongoing series of lectures (entitled What were your family doing in 1916?) being held in various local libraries around Ireland, courtesy of FindMyPast and Eneclann, followed by one-on-one consultations to help you discover what your ancestors were doing in 1916. The complete schedule of talks is below.

(click to enlarge)

And finally, another wonderful resource is the 1916 Easter Rising Historical Society on Facebook. There are some fantastic photos and it is a great place to share stories and ask questions.

I'm sure there are many fascinating stories of how 1916 influenced the lives of our Gleeson ancestors and it would be great to hear them and post them here on the Gathering website. Some Gleesons may have achieved a modicum of fame around that time, others will just be ordinary people trying to get on with their lives, when 1916 intervened. If you would like to submit a story, send it to gleesonclan2016@gmail.com. Include a few photos as well and we will draft a post for you to review. If you are happy with it, we will publish it here.   Why not make a start by leaving a comment below about how 1916 affected your own Gleeson family?

And if you are coming to the Gathering, you may also want to create a poster of your story and bring it along with you. We will hang it up on the walls of the Scouts' Hall so that everyone can read it.

What better way to commemorate the impact of 1916 on your Gleeson family.

Three women volunteers in Duckett's Grove Training Camp

Send your stories to: gleesonclan2016@gmail.com

Publicity Materials now available

Hi folks! Help us get the word out about the Gleeson Clan Gathering 2016!

Contacting all the Gleeson's who would be interested in attending the Gathering is a mammoth task, but ... Many Hands make Light Work!

And with your help we can reach every Gleeson in the world (potentially)!

We have created a few publicity materials for the Gathering which you may find useful. There are a few brief announcements which could easily be cut and pasted into an email or a post on Facebook. We have several tweets for Twitter. And we have a few preliminary posters and flyers which can be printed out, put in shop windows, mailed to your maiden aunt, whatever you like really!

These can be found on the new dedicated Publicity Materials page on the website here - http://www.gleesongathering.blogspot.co.uk/p/publicity-materials.html … you will also find it at the bottom of the menu on the right.

If you have other materials that you have developed yourself then please share them with me by emailing gleesonclan2016@gmail.com. Also, if you would like to volunteer for helping us in any way, I would love to hear from you.

Maurice Gleeson

Feb 2016

Click here for jpg or here for pdf version

Click here for jpg or here for pdf version

Metrics for the Gleeson Clan Gathering website

This Gleeson Clan Gathering website came into existence in Oct 2013 and was launched in earnest on 12th January 2016. Over the course of these past 4 weeks it has attracted quite a bit of traffic. 

Below is a break down of the metrics associated with this website (using Google Analytics). Even though these results are very preliminary, it is clear that the reach of the Gleeson Clan Gathering website is very extensive and stretches out to the full extent of the Irish Diaspora. These preliminary metrics are important in order to secure funding for the event and are presented here to demonstrate that the infrastructure is in place to help promote the event and assure its success.

How much traffic is the website getting?

So far, the website has been viewed more than 4300 times since inception, and 3000 times since the launch of the Programme of Events on 12th Jan 2016. The number of hits per day averages at about 100.

Website traffic since Jan 2016

Who is the audience for the Gleeson Clan Gathering?

Not surprisingly, the country with the most views is the United States, with almost 1400 hits. There are an estimated 35 million people of Irish descent in the US - that's 5.5 times greater than the number of people living in Ireland today. [1]

Ireland is the country with the second highest number of views (609), so clearly the website is reaching both Local Irish and Diaspora Irish alike.

The UK comes in third with 382 views. And again, this comes as no surprise given that up to 25% of the population are thought to have Irish ancestry. That's about 15 million people. [1] 

Australia is placed fourth with 333 views, Canada in fifth with 162 and then New Zealand with 32. This order of countries is not surprising and reflects what one would expect from the distribution of the Irish diaspora around the world. Over 2 million people in Australia (>10% of the total population in 2011) said they were of Irish descent. The Irish diaspora in Canada was just over 4.5 million in 2011 or roughly 14% of the total Canadian population. [1] 

If these country viewing figures are expressed as a ratio to the population (in millions) of each of the countries [2] we get the following (which can be regarded as a kind of Country Penetration metric):

US ... 1392/324 = 4.30
IRL ... 609/4.7 = 129.6
UK ... 382/65 = 5.87
AUS ... 333/24 = 13.88
CAN ... 162/36 = 4.5
NZ ... 32/4.5 = 7.11

This changes the order of the countries with Ireland coming out a clear winner (129.6). Interestingly, the country with the next largest "Penetration Ratio" is Australia (13.88), followed by New Zealand (7.11), and the UK (5.87). The US and Canada come in joint last with a ratio of about 4.5. Maybe more Gleeson's went out to the Antipodes then to the New World? Either way, it is good to see that the website is reaching both a local and an international audience and this should hopefully be reflected in the number of people attending the Gathering.

Ireland's diaspora ratio (US population vs home country population) is greater than that of other countries [1]

What are the most popular Pages & Posts?

The post that drove the most traffic to the website featured a 6-minute video by Donegal schoolteacher John Ruddy who has made a fabulous cartoon version of the History of Ireland voiced by himself. This is perfect for anyone who needs a quick introduction to Ireland ... in a nutshell.

Another popular post was the one announcing free access to the FindMyPast records. People like free things.

In terms of Pages (the more static parts of the website), it is good to see that the Programme of Events is the page attracting the most hits. This shows that people are interested in the event and want to see what is going on.

The second largest number of hits is on the Planning Your Trip page, which suggests that people are actively looking at what is available in terms of accommodation, car hire, etc and making at least provisional plans.

And again encouragingly, the page with the third most number of hits is the Reservations & Bookings page. This is specifically designed to give viewers the event codes needed to book a place on each individual event, tour or outing.

Conclusions

The Gleeson Clan Gathering website has certainly attracted a lot of traffic since launch on 12th Jan 2016. This momentum will be maintained over the course of the next several months with at least weekly postings in order to engage the audience and encourage attendance at the Gathering in August. 

From the above metrics, it is evident that the website has a reach that extends to both Local Irish and Diaspora Irish alike, wherever in the world they may be.

Maurice Gleeson

February 2016

References:

1. Ireland's Diaspora Policy. Dept of Foreign Affairs & Trade. March 2015.
Available at https://www.dfa.ie/media/globalirish/global-irish-irelands-diaspora-policy.pdf 

2. Countries in the world by population (2016).
Available at http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/

Write up your Genealogy

This should be right up your alley! The chance to summarise everything you know about your Gleeson ancestry so that it can be published as a blog post here on this website. Or so that you can bring it along to the Gathering as a poster (where we will hang it up on the walls of the Scouts' Hall). Or simply so that you can talk about it with other people at the event. Either way, sharing this with other people could help you break through some of your Brick Walls in your Gleeson research.

Below are a few suggestions for the sort of topics and questions that you could address.

The two most important pieces of information about your Gleeson family are 1) what townland did they come from? and 2) did the family have a nickname? Knowing the townland will help identify neighbouring Gleeson families that could vey well be related to you. Knowing the family nickname will also tie you to other families with the same nickname, and these families are likely to be your close cousins and a little bit more digging might establish a firm paper trail connecting your two families.

Other useful information is the names and exact birth order of your earliest ancestor's children, particularly the first son. Irish naming convention meant that the children were named after specific family members so this could give you a very important clue to the previous generation. Sons were named as follows:

• First born son was named after the father's father
• 2nd born son after the mother's father
• 3rd born son after the father 
• 4th born son after the father's eldest brother
• 5th born son after the mother's eldest brother

A corresponding naming system existed for daughters:

• First born daughter was named after the mother's mother
• 2nd born daughter after the father's mother
• 3rd born daughter after the mother 
• 4th born daughter after the mother's eldest sister
• 5th born daughter after the father's eldest sister

So here are the questions. Have a go at answering them and see how far you get. If you're happy with what you've written, send it to gleesonclan2016@gmail.com (along with a few photos if you have them) and we will draft a blog post and publish it for you here on this website. You can also look into developing it as a poster which you can bring along with you to the gathering.

1) What townland did your Gleeson family come from?

2) Did your family have a nickname (like Gleeson Cooper, or Gleeson Fira, etc)?

3) Who is your earliest known Gleeson ancestor? (give name, birth, death, & marriage details, particularly locations and dates)

4) Who were his children and what was their exact birth order?

5) Do you have a 3-4 generation family tree chart for your earliest known ancestor and his descendants? If so, include a jpeg or pdf version of it in your report.

6) What happened to your Gleeson family? did they emigrate? why (or why not)?

7) What did your Gleeson family do? Were there any notable characters in the family? Did any of them have a "brush with history"?

8) What mysteries exist within the family history and which ones are you hoping to solve at some stage?


And there are probably a host of other questions that you could address too. There is only one general rule that you need to observe ...

Have fun!

Send your family stories to: 

gleesonclan2016@gmail.com

Profile - UCC Genealogy Summer School

There are a lot of genealogy courses and events going on during this summer in Ireland and people attending the Gleeson Clan Gathering may wish to take advantage of some of these. Attending a genealogy course is a great way to immerse yourself in family history research and socialise with like-minded people. It also can give you the impetus and enthusiasm to kick-start your own genealogical research. 

The Ancestors are waiting for you ... why not answer the call?

I'll profile several of these courses over the next several weeks but first off is the University College Cork Genealogy Summer School which runs from June 26th to July 2nd.

Irish Genealogy Summer School 2016: Roots to the Rising 

Irish Genealogy Summer School, University College Cork, June 26 - July 2, 2016

This genealogy summer school offers a complete course in the latest Irish genealogy research for those searching for their Irish roots, as one would expect from a summer school held in UCC, one of the world’s leading universities. All aspects of the subject are covered by a series of presentations and ‘hands on’ workshops given by a selection of Ireland’s leading genealogical lecturers and experts. The latest online and offline sources are described and explained in presentations which will be of great interest to the seeker of Irish roots and family history, whether beginner or expert. The provisional timetable of lectures, workshops, events and excursions is detailed below.

A range of different packages is on offer to suit your genealogy research needs, ranging from a daily rate (134.12 euro) to a several day package (i.e. 3-6 days) to a complete package (i.e. all 7 days for 1094.12 euro). A complete list of the various packages and their cost is available here.

Genealogy sources, and approaches are described and explained in presentations which will be of great interest to the seeker of Irish roots and family history. It is suitable for all genealogy enthusiasts, no matter your level of expertise.

Thankfully, it is not all work. A number of field trips are offered featuring sites and locations in Cobh, Spike Island, Fota House, Not forgetting, optional evening tours to sites of interest in Cork itself, ‘the Venice of Ireland’, and fieldtrips to the beautiful town of Youghal, Beal na Blath and the beautiful Bride Valley.

Campus accommodation has been secured for the school duration at UCC and also a list of accommodation providers on request. Travel details from Dublin airport and Shannon are also available on request. Please email Course Co-ordinator Lorna Moloney with any of your queries at l.moloney@ucc.ie 

Local and international visitors are welcome and registration is now open. Payment can be made by credit card over the phone or via a bank transfer form. There are also concession rates available.  Please contact Lorna Moloney at l.moloney@ucc.ie for payment details or telephone +353-85-8721184

Contact Details UCC:

• Ancestral Connections Summer School Co-ordinator:
  Lorna Moloney at Email: l.moloney@ucc.ie or +353-(0)85-8721184 or +353-21-4904702
• Lindy Meldon, Programme Assistant:
  T: +353 (0)21 4904700. Email: l.meldon@ucc.ie

Genealogy Summer School Timetable 2016

ANCESTRAL CONNECTIONS: NAMES, ROOTS TO THE RISING  26 JUNE - 2 JULY 2016

Sunday evening, June 26
6pm: Meet and Greet. Welcome Reception at University College Cork. Opening ACE Director -Dr Séamus ÓTuama
 Lives Lost: the Forgotten Victims of the 1916 Rising.  Eileen Ó Dúill CG

Music by Uilleann Ceoil

Monday, June 27Morning

8.30: Registration
9.00 - 10.15: Introduction to Irish Genealogy: Where Do I Start? Eileen M. Ó Dúill, CG
10.15 - 10.30  Break -  Morning Break
Break – Morning Break
10.30 – 11.45: Researching in Ireland: Planning is the Key To Success. Eileen M. Ó Dúill, CG
12.00- 1.00: Births, Marriages & Deaths - Irish Civil Registration - Eileen M. Ó Dúill, CG

1.00 – 1.45: Lunch

Afternoon

Fieldtrip to Youghal  A.M. Coghlan

2.00 – Bus departure to Youghal from Western Gateway Building UCC
Afternoon Field trip: Exploring Youghal  – Archives & Churches  A.M. Coghlan 

6.00 – 8.00  Sean O'Duill  'Matchmakers & Marriage Customs in 19th century Ireland &  Death & Burial Customs

Evening Dining at the Walter Ralegh Hotel Youghal.

Or  Genealogy Lectures at UCC

2.00 - 3.00  Clans of Ireland - Lorna Moloney
3.15 - 4.15  What genealogical information can be gleaned from tax lists?  Aiden Feerick
4.15-  5.15  The Irish and America; motivation, emigration and assimilation’- Dr Michael Martin
5.15-  6.30  From rags to riches and from riches to rags: searching for your aristocratic ancestors – Dr Dagmar O' Riain-Raedel

Tuesday June 28

9.00-10.00:    "Irish Placenames" - Dr. Paul MacCotter
10.00-10.45:  Mary Beglan - 'In depth exploration of the National Archives'
Break – Morning Break
11.00 - 12.00: English State Papers as a Genealogical Source - Dr Joe Mannion
12.00 – 1.00  How to find our ancestors using Online Maps - Dr Paddy Waldron
1.00 – 2.00: Lunch  or Lunchtime workshop - Christine Deakin - How to preserve your documents and images for family history research
2.00 – 2.45: Irish Rebels - Fiona Fitzsimons
3.00 – 3.45: Tracing who fought in the Irish Revolution 1913 to 1923 - Fiona Fitzsimons
Afternoon Break 2.45-3.00
4.00-5.00: Prosecuting dissent: Police and army records for Irish genealogy 1867 to 1923. Brian Donovan
5.00:6.00  Using Parish Registers Online -  Dr Paddy Waldron
6.00-7.00 Kyle J. Betit - How to use Ancestry.com for immigrant research

8.00 - Optional evening entertainment of Irish Culture (Music, Food & textiles)  and Dancing,  - Aiden Feerick with music by Uilleann Ceol

Wednesday June 29
9.00-10.00: Kyle J. Betit Exploring your Irish Ancestry through US Records
10.00-10.45: Aiden Feerick - The ancestral connections of the 7 signatories of The Proclamation
Break – Morning Break
11.00 – 12.00: Jan Gow - Genealogy Hardware and software
12.00-1.00 Steven Smyrl – Heir Hunting

1.30 - Cobh Field trip
Wonderful fieldtrip to Spike Island, Cobh & Fota House 

Christy Keating - Cobh tour at Cobh Heritage Centre

Dr Michael Martin: Spike Island - Spike Island, saints, felons and famine’

* Special lecture with Regina Sexton Culinary Historian UCC at Fota House

"From Escoffier to Bread and Spread: diet, food and cookery in early 20th century Ireland"

Or Lectures and computer workshops at UCC

Dr Maurice Gleeson - Adding DNA to your genealogy toolkit: the 3 tests & how to get them to work for you.

Dr Mary O'Keeffe - TBA

Thursday June 30

9.00 – 10.00: Sean J. Murphy  'Were our ancestors liars? Differences between the 1901 and 1911 census.
10.15 – 11.00 Dr James G. Ryan - Estate Records
11.00 – 11.15: Break
11.15 –12.00: Irish Newspapers as a source for Genealogical research. Nicola Morris M.A.P.G.I.
12.00- 12.45 : Impact of 1916. Nicola Morris M.A.P.G.I.
12.45 – 2.00: Lunch
2.00-2.45 "Cork - The Real Capital" Jewish Presence - What do you think?--  Stuart Rosenblatt P.C. FGSI.
2.45 -4.00: Where to go once the record trail dries up? Surname and 'clan' history and the y-chromosome. Dr. Paul MacCotter
4.00-4.30: Break
4.30 – 5.45: Surname Workshop Sean Murphy 'Irish Surnames'
6.00-7.00: Rosaleen Underwood: 'The Do's and Don't of family trees  

OR

7.00: Optional evening walking tour of Cork Inner City 'The Venice of Ireland' with Dr David Butler, featuring stops at St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Elizabeth Fort, City Defenses, Masonic Hall and Huguenot Quarter, followed by group evening meal'.

Friday July 19.00 – 10.15: Church Records & Irish Genealogy. Dr Paul MacCotter
10.15-11.00: “James Green Douglas, Quaker and Sinn Fein Party Member” Genealogy and social networks - Noel Jenkins.
10.45- 11.00: Morning Break
11.00 – 12.15: 'Pre-1840 resources for Irish Genealogy  Dr David Butler
12.15-1.00: John Goodman "Tracing Irish soldiers What's available and what we can learn
1.00 -2.00: Lunch
2.00 – 2.45 Hilary McDonagh ‘Sons & Children - Genealogy of Irish Childhood
2.45-3.30 Maeve Mullin ‘Valuation office – A Colourful Gem
3.30 -4.00 David Ryan: 'Using genealogy to interpret memorials & monuments OR

Tour of Honan's Chapel at UCC with James Cronin.
Afternoon Break
4.00 : Certificate Ceremony & Lecture closing – Kenneth Nicholls,

Evening field trip Dr Griffin Murray, Dr Jane Lyons and John Nangle

This evening fieldtrip to the beautiful Bride Valley will see participants visit two of the most significant historic locations in county Cork. We will first visit Béal na Bláth the location where Michael Collins was killed in an ambush during the Civil War in 1922. Following that we will visit the romantic ruins of Kilcrea Friary, a fifteenth-century Franciscan friary built under the patronage of the McCarthys. We will also look at some of the important burial monuments there, including the tomb of Art O'Leary, the famous eighteenth-century outlaw. We will then return to Cork for dinner at 8pm.

Celebratory Dinner  - Ancestral Connections 2016 in honour of Kenneth Nicholls  at 8.00p.m.  Venue TBA

Saturday July 2 - Cork Archaeological and Historical Society 1916 Conference

Additional Expert sessions will be available to book with leading genealogists during the school at UCC to faciliate archival trips and there will be a number of breakout workshops during the week with leading genealogists. These will be available to book once your booking of the school is completed.

Sunday July 3 – Departure
To book contact:
Summer School Co-Ordinator: Lorna Moloney, l.moloney@ucc.ie
T: 085-8721184 / 021-4904700

Genealogy Summer School - Apply Now

Posters wanted!

Since the original Call for Posters & Presentations in September last year, we have had submissions on a wonderful array of topics and as a result we have been privileged to put together a fabulous programme of lectures planned for Friday evening & Saturday daytime ...

... But we still need POSTERS!

There are plenty of topics that could be covered in a poster and there are some great ideas on the updated webpage. So if you have a personal family story or have done some of your own research on some aspect of the Gleeson family, why not write it up into a poster so we can put it up on the walls of the Scouts' Hall as part of the Friday & Saturday events. We could also turn it into a blog post for this website. And we could also publish it in the "Proceedings of the Gleeson Clan Gathering 2016".

Please have a look at some of the ideas on the updated webpage (new ones added in blue) and send your poster ideas to us at gleesonclan2016@gmail.com