{"id":428884,"date":"2026-05-02T15:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428884\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:15:14","slug":"cork-actress-traces-her-family-roots-to-revolutionary-grandfather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428884\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork actress traces her family roots to revolutionary grandfather"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Cork actress Eileen Walsh sets out to uncover the remarkable story of her revolutionary grandfather in a new documentary series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The 49-year-old, who made her name in Disco Pigs on stage 30 years ago alongside Cillian Murphy, is one of six well-known people who feature in two-part  Come To Your Census, which starts on RT\u00c91 on Sunday at 6.30pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The series follows them as they step back in time to explore Ireland\u2019s past in deeply personal ways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            It is timed to coincide with the release of the 1926 Census &#8211; the first carried out as a Free State &#8211; by the National Archives of Ireland, making these historic records available online, in full and free to the public for the first time.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">To mark this landmark release, the documentary series follows six well-known faces as they gain access to the Census, guided by archivists from the National Archives and expert historians, as they uncover the stories about the people and communities that came before them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In the first episode, trade unionist Mick Lynch, Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta presenter Gormfhlaith N\u00ed Thuairisg, and architect Dermot Bannon explore their history through the 1926 Census.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            In Cork city, Lynch traces his father\u2019s family back to the now-derelict lanes of the city\u2019s former slums, uncovering the story of his widowed grandmother who was raising a young family alone.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In Connemara, N\u00ed Thuairisg explores the role the Irish language played in shaping her family\u2019s identity and values.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">And in Waterford, Dermot Bannon reveals the stark reality for a small town living in the shadow of an industrial school for children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Actress Walsh features in the second episode on May 10, as she discovers the role her grandfather played in revolutionary times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Also in that episode, in Dublin\u2019s Liberties, novelist and UL Professor of Creative Writing Joseph O\u2019Connor traces his family\u2019s working-class roots, uncovering a community that shaped several generations of his family. And in Mayo, RT\u00c9 Radio 1 radio presenter Louise Duffy explores the powerful roles played by women in the rural community where she grew up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork actress Eileen Walsh sets out to uncover the remarkable story of her revolutionary grandfather in a new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,282],"class_list":["post-428884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}