promo_3
People
 
 
promo_2
Places
 
 
promo_2
Travel
 
Places

Ikerrin Homeplace

Last year, I travelled to Ireland to visit the place where my paternal ancestors came from. The Irish call it the ‘homeplace’, and my family’s homeplace is close to the village of Dunkerrin in County Offaly. It’s a stone’s throw from the Barony of Ikerrin (Uí Chairín), the ancient homelands to one of the oldest Irish families, the O’Meachair/Meagher/Maher Clan.
Read more

Places

An open door to Ikerrin Hawthorn

A beautiful painting titled Ikerrin used to hang above the fireplace in my grandparent’s dining room. The watercolour depicted a freestanding gabled brick house framed by an ornately trimmed verandah and a lush garden in bloom. Ikerrin was my grandfather, Jack Meagher’s childhood home, named after the family ancestral lands in the Barony of Ikerrin, County Tipperary, Ireland.

In the lounge room was another curio, a small-framed sketch also captioned, “Ikerrin,” Wattle Road, Hawthorn. This monochrome sketch, anchored to a place by its caption, is almost abstract. I asked my grandmother about it, and she showed me the back of the frame complete with glued on card and envelope addressed to Miss D. Donovan. Read more

People

Building on a legacy

A few years ago, I inherited my late mother’s family history research.

She amassed a rich family archive over thirty years. Letters, photographs, diaries found their way into her collection, spurring on her research and interest. She made fantastic discoveries and built up family trees and started to write family histories. Over the years I was drawn to the allure of research, history and family stories.  Soon I was following up loose ends and insisting that the collection was stored properly in archival folders and boxes. We’d go to the State Library together. She would research and I volunteered in the Picture Collection as I started to work towards a career in history and heritage. We’d meet for lunch at Druids café on Swanston Street and discuss the progress of the day. She wanted to give something tangible to the family. A family history in a book. Perhaps several books.

Read more