A FamilySearch blog posting (August 31) explains how the Penal Laws and other actions by the British government made Irish family history research more difficult. The statistics in the opening paragraph are eye-catching: There are 34.5 million Americans who are primarily or partially Irish -- seven times more people than the current population of Ireland. Irish is the second-most common ancestry among Americans, falling behind German. At the end of the posting is a list of FamilySearch resources linked to each collection. It's often helpful to revisit a source and see if something new has been added. Read the blog posting here: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/persecuton-irish-information-difficult-discover/ You may find yourself pausing over a typographical error or two in the article, e.g., "down land" instead of townland. It reminded me of a message I received last week from a friend who emailed about the need for home repairs due to a "leek in her sunroom." I pictured an onion raising havoc on her porch...