Mayo Genealogy Tours
My Ireland Heritage find your Ancestors and exact house location from the 1700’s to the late 1800’s, and all available records in Ireland. We are an Irish family business dedicated to assisting you in your Irish Genealogy research for your roots and records of your family history of past generations in Mayo, as well as providing you with a once in a lifetime Irish Genealogy tour experience to visit your families original family house and Walk in the Footsteps of your Irish Ancestors.
Sean and the Team at My Ireland Heritage are a Government certified & approved Genealogy & Touring Company, and will personally guide you on the journey into your Irish ancestry to any County in Ireland.
Many companies are genealogy research only, many companies are touring companies only, we at My Ireland Family Heritage are proud to be able to encompass your research and tour together enabling us to work with you throughout the process to customize your tour with you and for you. To achieve a full genealogy tour experience consider adding one of our one-day historical tours.
Our Tours
Our Ancestral Townland Experience Tours
County Mayo’s rugged western landscape, dominated by Croagh Patrick and stretching out to Achill Island and Clew Bay, was among the areas hit hardest by the Great Famine and the emigration that followed. Entire townlands here were significantly depopulated over the 19th and 20th centuries, and Mayo has one of the strongest emigrant diaspora connections of any Irish county, particularly to the United States.
Much of rural Mayo, especially along the coast and out toward Achill, had a strong Irish-speaking tradition, which affects how family names and locations were recorded, or in some cases not recorded, at the time. We work carefully through parish, graveyard and Griffith’s Valuation records to reconstruct exactly where a family lived, cross-referencing anglicised surnames against their Irish-language origins where relevant, before confirming the townland itself. Mayo’s civil parishes are also large in places, making it especially important to identify the actual church congregation your family used rather than relying on the parish name alone.
A Mayo tour can take in the dramatic scenery around Croagh Patrick, Clew Bay and Achill Island, alongside a visit to your family’s specific townland, a landscape so striking, and so connected to loss and departure, that it often resonates deeply with visiting descendants.
- Mayo has 7 Baronies
- Mayo has 73 Civil parishes
- Mayo has 154 Electoral Divisions
- Mayo has 3425 Townlands
- Mayo has 71 sub Townlands
County Mayo (“Plain of the yew trees”) is a county in the western side of Ireland. It is part of the province of Connacht and is named after the village of Mayo, now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county was 130,638 at the 2011 census.The boundaries of the county, which was formed in 1585, reflect the Mac William Íochtar lordship at that time.
The Irish Celtic Tribes By Ptolemy 1st Century 500BC-500AD
- County Mayo – The Magnatai
Family Dynasties 1500-1600 AD
- Irish – O’malley, O’Hara, O’Dowd
- Norman – Burke, Fitzstephen
- Scottish – None
- Viking – None
County Mayo – Things to do and may be possible to include within your Ancestral Townland Experience Tour
- The Great Western Greenway (Westport)
- Atlantic Drive on Achill Island (Westport)
- Keem Bay (Achill Island)
- Croagh Patrick
- Michael Davitt Museum (Foxford)
- The Ceide Fields
- The Wild Atlantic way
- National Museum of Ireland – Country Life (Castlebar)
- Ashford Castle Cong
- National Shrine of Our Lady of Knock (Knock)
- Royal Abbey of Cong (Cong)
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Mayo have such a strong connection to emigration?
Mayo was severely affected by the Great Famine, and its poor land and limited opportunity led to sustained emigration over generations, particularly to the United States.
My Mayo ancestors may have spoken Irish, how does that affect research?
It’s a factor we account for, since surnames and place names in Irish-speaking areas were sometimes recorded differently, or anglicised inconsistently, in official documents.
Can a Mayo tour include Achill Island?
Yes, where a family connection to Achill exists, we can include the island as part of your itinerary.
