News briefs

National Heritage Week, 20-28 August: More than 1200 events, many of them of genealogical interest, have already been added to the programme for this year's heritage festival. A free printed listings guide will be available from mid-July in public offices such as libraries and heritage centres. In the meantime, if your family history group is organising any events, make sure to register it on the festival website at www.heritageweek.ie to ensure it is included in the online listings.

How to trace your ancestors in Ireland: In conjunction with the Genealogical Society of Ireland, John Hamrock of Ancestor Network is starting a new Saturday morning course for beginners this coming weekend (2nd July). Held at the GSI Library & Archive, Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire, the six-week course will include class-based lessons as well as guided tours of major repositories. More details: 087 0505296

Irish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War: The National Archives in London today released records for 4,000 British and Irish soldiers who volunteered to join the International Brigades in their defence of the elected Spanish goverment and were involved in some of the Spanish Civil War’s most critical engagements. These records were collected by the British Security Service (MI5) in the belief that many of the volunteers were communists. The records consist of alphabetical lists of named volunteers, together with a small selection of digitised card indexes relating to individuals.

Three collections released by FindMyPast.ie: The recently launched FindMyPast.ie has added three small but interesting collections to its online database of records. They are:

• Estate Commissioners Offices, Applications for Evicted Tenants 1907
  
• Marriage Licence Bonds; Diocese of Cloyne (Cork) 1630-1800
  
• The Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook, published by the Irish Times in 1917 to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising (more than 6,700 names).