Last Monday the erudite and sapient Póló wrote about a photo he took in Armagh on a school trip in the 1950s. He put a copy of the photo on a web page in 2004 and, eight years later, he got an email from the person who now lives in a house that was shown in the photo. Póló was able to supply a better copy, pleasing his correspondent, and (as Póló said)
[…] he learned something new and I got a better dating on my trip and photos.
But it was his next paragraph that rang a bell with me:
I am always telling people, particularly those who are following up their family history, that they should have a presence, however minimal, on the web. That way people can find you and you never know what they might be bringing to the table.
Just before reading that, I’d had a message from a correspondent in Australia. He had seen my page about the old Athlone canal and reckoned that he was probably related to a previous, British, visitor to the page; I put them in touch and it seems that they are cousins. You can read the correspondence on my Athlone canal page. So a reference to an abandoned canal on an obscure Irish website has helped two folk to get in touch — and I, and other visitors to the site, have learned a bit more about the canal.
But there is more to learn. Does anyone know anything about Canal Lodge? The AthloneLive forum has disappeared, so I can’t ask there, and I have no other information to hand. I am making enquiries, but if anyone has any information about the building I would be glad to receive it and I’ll make sure it’s passed on.
Irish waterways history 