The template said to call this part "A brief history" but, I'm here to assure you there is no such thing. 

The research landscape is strongly shaped by its history. The places where my ancestors lived are today in Northern Ireland, and much of the evidence is archived separately from the Republic of Ireland. So, many of the records I am searching for are located in what is today Northern Ireland, while the events they document took place in Ireland before Northern Ireland existed. My ancestors' lives were shaped by—and in their small ways, helped shape the always passionate and often bloody conversations about economy, politics, church, and colony that characterize the turbulent history of the island.

In an effort to stay respectful, curious, and clear-eyed about the long conflicts I have come to study by necessity, I repeat the names of the counties, the townlands, the towns, and the cities like mantras, and try to use the correct names of the places in time. While the land underlying the history changes names and boundaries again and again, and though that landscape may look completely different today, it is the same land my father's mother's people knew  and, I imagine, loved—with all the complications that love seems to always entail. 

Any mistakes are my own. Please email me at sarahmiles@grovefiles.com with any corrections, suggestions, insights, or other feedback. Please note: I write from what feels like the whip end of the diaspora. I've never been to either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland, and will be particularly grateful for any corrections or viewpoints from those who have been there, or even better, actually live there.