I’d never heard of the Western Sydney University until a few days ago when I was going back over bits and pieces I had written over the last half-century or more.

Sixty-five years ago this week, my father died - I was just four years of age and in truth never really remember him.

That’s sad, of course, and yet maybe it was that lack of contact with or knowledge of my own father that gave me such an inquisitive and questioning outlook on life and everything else too!

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think it can also create a longing for information or stories or knowledge about a person, place or thing, and that’s why I never stop asking questions like why? Where? And when?

So, to gather facts and figures and names and dates, one has to undertake research.

Ye may say I’ve been researching for years, correct; but in essence, what is research all about?

The Western Sydney University defined research as ‘creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of human knowledge, ideas, and understanding’. Now there’s some ball of a definition and, in fairness, I agree with every syllable of it!

About the year 2003, I started research on a project to record all (or as many as possible) of the inscriptions on the headstones in Gortroe cemetery in my own parish.

Inscriptions on headstones yield names, ages, dates and, sometimes, addresses.

I was inspired by a great friend from Cork city, Richard Henchion. An amazing man, he spent his spare time for many decades recording, transcribing, and mapping over 600 cemeteries in Cork city and County. His work is invaluable and, as........

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