Heritage Services

🌳 Find Your Irish Family

Discover Your Story in the West of Ireland

Your ancestors carried stories across the Atlantic — stories of resilience, hardship, hope, and community. At Atlantic Ireland, I help you uncover those stories in the records from the historic region of the West of Ireland—on the Atlantic fringe of Europe.

Whether you’re beginning your family tree, seeking a lost connection, or gathering documents for Irish citizenship, my research combines deep historical expertise with exclusive access to the largest collection of school registers and parish records from Ireland’s West.

Dr. Liam Alex Heffron, M.A., Ph.D

Why Work With Me?

As a professional historian, writer, and genealogist from County Mayo in the heart of the West of Ireland, my career has been devoted to recovering hidden histories and making them meaningful to families today.

• 📜 Academic Authority: Ph.D. in Irish history (University of Galway), specialising in community life in the centuries leading up to and during the Irish War of Independence & Civil War.

• 🤝 Affiliations & Recognition: Member of the Irish Association of Professional Historians; Heritage Partner with Ancestry.com, founder and chairperson of St Cormac’s (Heritage) Society; former Mayo GAA History Officer.

• 🌍 International Expert: Invited expert speaker at the European Parliament on cultural and population loss in rural Europe;

• 🎥 Genealogy Media Consultant: Contributed to BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? and RTÉ’s The Battle for Rural Ireland and Claire Byrne Live; Irish radio programmes.

• 📚 Writer & Storyteller: Weekly columnist for the Western People newspaper, Hollywood and Heffron Substack and author of No Revolution: Igniting War in North Mayo, 1917–1923 and ‘Moygownagh ‘C’ Co. IRA’ in Spirit of Revolution; Ireland from Below, 1917-1923.

Most recently, in collaboration with Ancestry.com and in partnership with schools throughout Mayo and Sligo, we curated and digitised over one million primary school records, now forming the largest online archive of its kind in Ireland.

What I Offer

🔎 Contextualised Archival Research

  • Tailored searches across Irish, British, Canadian and U.S. archives.

  • Academic background understanding of historical records.

  • Meaningful family heritage reports with context and narrative.

👨‍👩‍👧 Genealogy Consultations

  • One-to-one Zoom consultations to review your family history.

  • Guidance on interpreting records, spelling variations, and local context, especially in the Irish context.

  • Advice on tracing lines further back or connecting with living relatives.

🛂 Irish Citizenship Support

  • Approved partner with Irish and American Immigration lawyers.

  • Identifying records needed to prove Irish descent.

  • Document packages prepared for Irish citizenship and passport applications.

  • Guidance on supplementing gaps with historical evidence.

Your Homecoming Journey

My work is about more than names and dates. It is about restoring connection — between you and your ancestors, between the Irish diaspora and the communities they left behind.

Together, we will not only uncover where your family came from, but also bring their world to life: the schools they attended, the farms they worked, the parishes they prayed in, and the villages they called home.

Begin Your Search

Step 1. Fill in my genealogy enquiry form with as much information as you know.

Step 2. I’ll review the details and provide a quote based on available records.

Step 3. We begin the search — and bring your Irish story back into the light.