I am a member of this society and they have uploaded 'The Margaret Higgins Database of Catholics in England and Their Friends : 1607-1840' on the society web site https://catholicfhs.online/index.php

The Introduction alone is worth a read and contains this paragraph
"A word of warning!  If the researcher is able to use the software, Microsoft Access, it would be worthwhile  to  make  use  of  the  asterisk,  “*”,  in  searching  for  names.    This  wildcard  will  reveal possibilities  for  the  various  spellings  of  names.    In  the  database,  it  is  possible  to  find  nineteen variations of the name “Donoghue” and that does not include the variations for “O’Donoghue”. "

 

Contributed by Mike Donahue

My g-grandfather, Patrick O'Donoghue immigrated to Chicago to join his brother, Michael in the late 1850s. The brothers settled in a neighborhood called Bridgeport on Chicago's south side; they raised their families living next door to each other. All official records of the two brothers and their families, census, city directories, church records, spell their name "Donohue." That is, until I found my father's baptismal record. Someone, probably his father, wrote over the second letter 'o' in his name and changed it to the letter 'a.' Clearly, there was a disagreement in the family that was serious enough to motivate this change in spelling. Though I don't know what it was; since 1910, we've signed our name Donahue.

Contributed by Michael O'Donoghue

I thought I would send a series of photos I have just framed.  It was only a few years ago I saw this pattern of photos. The first photo is of my Grandfather John Patrick ODONOGHUE with my father Owen. The second photo is of me with my father and the third with my son Patrick.  There is no photo like this with grandfather and any other uncles or my father with my brother. My son is now 15 years old so I could not recreate a photo but had to choose from a few photos.  So I am very happy with this photo series. To me it demonstrates a fathers love of his son that passes down generations and keeps the O’Donoghue family strong. 

 

Contributed by Tom Donahue

My grandfather Patrick Donohue, who came to the US around 1850,  was born In Kilmuckridge in Wexford. He was illiterate when he became a US citizen in 1860 so the application for citizenship is marked by his 'X'.

Years later my father researched this application and noted that the Presiding Judge had written Patrick's name as Patrick Donahue, and so the name has remained these past 160 years. I remember as a child asking my father why we spelled the name as we do (with the 'a')  and he told me that my grandfather had had a schoolteacher named Donahue and that he copied her spelling. In fact, the judge approving his citizenship had made spelling it with an 'a' final, and so it has remained all these years.  

Greetings all. 
I am Helen Donahue,  my Donahue line comes from Portland, Maine.  I am a volunteer at the Maine Irish Heritage Center in the genealogy department.  We have a couple of projects that I thought might be of interest to you.  They are through FTDNA,  one is the Maine Gaeltacht project and the other is one I have just begun named Aran Islands-Galway DNA project.  My great grandfather came to Portland from Island Pond, Vermont by way of the Grand Trunk Railroad who he worked for.  His father came from Inis Mor, Aran, Islands, Galway, Ireland.  What we are trying to do is narrow down our Aran family trees.  We (Maine Irish Heritage Center,  http://www.maineirish.com/) go to Galway and now Aran to ask people to do the FTDNA testing along with many of us with family that came  from that region of Ireland  and now live in the Portland area have taken the test.  We have found so many Connemara cousins.  From this we hope to match more people to their Aran ancestors.  I myself have already found a few on the island !   If you know or think you might be from the Aran Islands I would like to encourage you to join our group.   
Happy New Year    
Helen

3-D virtual reality reconstruction of Irish national archive will allow public to walk through the destroyed building and explore the lost records.
Trinity College have launched ground-breaking project to digitally recreate the Four Courts Public Record Office building and it’s seven centuries of records in a historic 3-D virtual reality reconstruction. The building and contents, on the quays of Dublin’s River Liffey were destroyed by fire at Dublin’s Four Courts at the outset of the Irish Civil War.
Resurrecting and compiling these millions of recovered historical and genealogical facts will transform how we understand Ireland’s past.
The project, launched on Tuesday, in Trinity College Dubin’s Library, Long Room, has the potential to transform how we understand Ireland's past and will be of great interest to the Irish diaspora and anyone tracing their Irish roots. It is estimated that up to 70 million people around the world claim Irish ancestry and heritage.

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/trinity-digitally-recreates-seven-centuries-of-ireland-s-history-lost-in-1922-four-courts-fire

John Grenham's work is terrific https://www.johngrenham.com/.  He has just launched maps showing RC baptisms for every parish where our name is involved.  Go to https://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=O%27Donoghue and then click on the new tab on lefthand side under Maps

 

Contibuted by Michael O'Donohue

Digitalized records are a key part of the genealogists resources. However, records do not become digitalized by themselves. To this end, the Dublin City University has launched a project to digitalize the National Folklore Collection. The idea is to achieve this using a public participation approach, which means that they need you. The outcome will be an archive that will be available to the public and a data management system that will archive future material. If your are interested, you can find details and participate here: https://www.duchas.ie/en/info.

Regarding the O'Donoghue link, there are lots of things to find in the School's Collection. As an example, I have just digitalized this story, written by a child in the 1930s:

How Donoghue Cruig got the name

A great battle was fought at Carrgaveena long ago. The women and the children fled from the glen to the elevated ground of Artigallivan for safety. One mother finding herself unable to carry her baby boy and father hid him among the rushes growing in the marsh at Rusheenbeg. He was afterwards called Cruig and from him the O'Donoghue Cruigs were descended."

While searching for my 2nd great grandfather Jeremiah D Donoghue 1835-1915,  I came across these 13 photos from   http://archives.lib.state.ma.us that I thought you might like for your new site.

If you would like to see any of them please contact Rod

Thanks to Jean Smoorenburg