Our chief genealogists, Dolores O'Donnell Murrihy and Paddy Waldron, have both traced their own pedigrees back to ancestors who lived within sight of Doonbeg Golf Club in the early nineteenth century and earlier. They each have many decades of experience tracing families throughout County Clare, in all parts of Ireland and overseas. Both were founding members of the Clare Roots Society in April 2006. They now represent their respective areas on the committee of that society and, by coincidence, are also its representatives on the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO)
Dolores O'Donnell Murrihy
Dolores was born in Doonbeg and her father, Jackie O'Donnell, was born on the farm overlooking the 11th tee box! The O'Donnells had farmed there for over a hundred years. Dolores has a lifelong interest in genealogy and local history. After teaching in Dublin for many years she has returned to live in her native parish of Doonbeg. She is currently organizing a competition based on family history research for schoolchildren in the Doonbeg schools - based on the 1911 Census. Dolores has published both historical and genealogical articles in Doonbeg - A Story to Tell (1995), History of Our Lady of Victories Parish, Dublin (2000) Cooraclare & Cree, A History &Folklore (2002) and Dúnbeag 125 - An Irish Village School Looks Back(2004).
Paddy Waldron Ph.D.
Paddy has been an enthusiastic genealogist from an early age. While lecturing at Trinity College, he began to publish information on Irish genealogy on the College website in 1994. That evolved through a student group project and collaboration with John Grenham and The Irish Times into the Irish Ancestors website. Around the same time he encouraged his friend Fiona Fitzsimons, then a history postgraduate, to set up an online genealogical research business. That enterprise has since evolved into Eneclann, of which Paddy serves as a non-executive director. He now lives on the Clare/Tipperary border. Paddy has published his genealogical research (as Padraig Óg de Bhaldraithe) in journals ranging from the Old Limerick Journal to the Ballyguiltenane Rural Journal. He has lectured on genealogical topics to a variety of groups, including the Irish Genealogical Research Society, the Genealogical Society of Ireland, the Clare Roots Society and the Certificate Genealogists' Alumni Group and at Limerick City Library.
