At the start, it must be said that it is very difficult to trace ancestors in either Republic of Ireland (Eire) or Northern Ireland (Ulster). This is because of a major disaster affecting most of the Irish records of interest to the genealogist. In 1922 the Public Records Office in the Four Courts Building, Dublin, was taken over by one side during the Civil War. The records of Ireland were used to barricade the windows and the building was eventually destroyed by fire.
Lost were all the wills, censuses, and registers of the Church of Ireland lodged there under the terms of the Public Records Act of 1867. Safe from destruction were the Catholic and Presbyterian registers. However, many of the registers destroyed had been copied before they were sent to the building.
Since then, the Public Records Offices of both Eire and Northern Ireland have managed to collect a great deal of what is called substitute material. For example, all lawyers in the two sections of Ireland were asked to search their files for wills which were then photocopied. In addition, some of the indexes to wills had survived elsewhere, and so, in many cases, although you can obtain no details of the provisions of a will, it is possible to discover that one existed.
Acknowledgment
Rare is the publication that results from solitary effort. Far from being one of these, the Genealogy of the Corrigan Clan could not have become a reality without the interest and contributions of many family members and individuals, either in Ireland, Canada and in the United States of America.
In addition to information and data provided by those above, I benefited from editiorial suggestions, proofreading, and other assistance from several individuals. I wish, particularly, to acknowledge the following---and I profoundly regret the omission of any name that I may have forgotten to include:
Arthur, Henry, and Roger Corrigan who began this research, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
John Corrigan, Westmount, Quebec, CANADA
David Roop, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
Author:
J.Robert Corrigan
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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