The council of the Irish Genealogical Research Society (IGRS) announced on Friday that Claire Santry was unanimously chosen as the 2024 recipient of the Wallace Clare Award.
The award recognizes Ms. Santry’s “dedication to the promotion of Irish genealogy over many years through which she has had a particularly significant impact on the development of Irish ancestral research.” She is also a Fellow of the society and a former member of its governing council.
Since 2010, Ms. Santry’s blog, Irish Genealogy News, was the go-to source for many of us with Irish heritage.
After publishing 5,764 blog posts, she wrote her last post in July 2024.
She also published numerous articles in magazines, such as Family History (UK), Family History Magazine (US), and Practical Family History (UK).
When considering Ms. Santry as a candidate for the Wallace Clare Award, the awards sub-committee took note of several other contributions she made to the field of Irish genealogy. These include the considerable amount of time and effort she invested to create the online list of Church of Ireland parish registers for the IGRS, which is considered a highly reliable and accurate resource located on the IGRS website, her Irish Genealogy Toolkit website, launched in 2008, her book, The Family Tree Irish Genealogy Guide, and her ebook New Irish Genealogy Records.
Paul Gorry, chairman of the society’s awards sub-committee, said, “It is particularly fitting to be recognizing Claire Santry’s contribution to Irish genealogy in the year in which she has chosen to retire from journalism. Without doubt, over the past fourteen years her Irish Genealogy News blog was the most significant source of information on what was happening in Irish family history around the world. It is greatly missed. As a journalist she knew the value of media coverage in promoting news, and many societies, businesses, and even individuals, have benefitted significantly from her expertise, sharp insight and generosity, not least the IGRS.”
The chairman of the IGRS, Steven Smyrl, said, “Claire’s contribution to Irish genealogy is exactly that which our Wallace Clare Award was created to recognize. She has undoubtedly enjoyed every minute of the many years she has dedicated to promoting Irish genealogy news, but beyond that none of it was ever done for fame or glory.
He added, “That said, the IGRS was thrilled when in 2015 Claire was voted by the genealogy public at large as a Gold Medalist Genealogy Rockstar in the annual poll run by John D. Reid’s Anglo-Celtic-Connections blog. Well done Claire and thank you for your many years of service.”
The Wallace Clare Award is named in honour of Rev. Wallace Clare (1895-1963), a Catholic priest and keen academic who founded the IGRS in 1936. This was in response to the great fire in 1922, which consumed almost the entire contents of Ireland’s Public Record Office.
