Paul Gorry chats with people involved in various ways in Irish genealogy.

This week’s guest is Brendan Scott. Brendan found his way to genealogy by a circuitous route. He is Manager of the subscription website Roots Ireland on behalf of the Irish Family History Foundation. His background is in academic and local history but he started at third level doing geography. Along the way Brendan has had various posts in the history area and he worked with Cavan Genealogy before getting his ‘main day job’ with Roots Ireland. In addition he is historian-in-residence for Cavan, he works on occasional projects with the Ulster Historical Foundation and he lectures at Maynooth. He also finds time to edit the journal Breifne. He talks to Paul about the gulf between academic and local history. In relation to Roots Ireland they discuss improvements in the search facility, the depth of local knowledge and the situation with the Fermanagh, Clare and Wexford databases. As for corrections on the website, Brendan handles them personally and he has been known to deal with them on Christmas Day!

Roots Ireland: https://www.rootsireland.ie/