Kathy Roughan spent much of the Covid lockdown copying local land ownership records, known as ‘cancelled books’, from Clarecastle, which date as far back to the to the 19th century.
Ms Roughan physically copied thousands of entries into a spreadsheet, which then became part of the permanent digital archive for the Clarecastle Ballyea Heritage archive at: https://clarecastleballyea.clareheritage.org/.
Thanks to her efforts, others can now trace the record of their properties and home in the locality online.
Through her research, Ms Roughan said she has learned much about her family history. She is from Clarecastle originally and did a Master’s Degree in History at the University of Limerick but now lives in Australia.
“I’ve been able to log the progress of particularly my grandmother’s family who I know very little about. So, for me alone it was worth doing just for that,” she said.
You can read more in an article by Paul Hyland published in the independent.ie web site at: https://tinyurl.com/mpk6293d.