In which I attempt to sound official,
and largely fail.
A few plain words on using this site, followed by how your information is handled. Nothing here is meant to be stern — it’s mostly common sense written down.
By using this site — and particularly by leaving a comment, subscribing to the newsletter, or sending anything in — you’re taken to have read and accepted these terms. If any of it doesn’t suit you, the kindest course is simply not to use the site.
Terms of Use
Using the site. You’re very welcome here. Read it, browse it, share a link, quote a line or two with a nod back to the source — all grand, and warmly encouraged. What I’d ask you not to do is lift whole articles for republication elsewhere without asking first. A great deal of work goes into them.
The images — please read this. The pictures on this site fall into two kinds, and they’re treated differently.
The first kind is my own created work: original heritage illustrations, fine-art prints, and the like. These represent a very great deal of effort, they are not free stock, and they are not available for free use — please do not copy, download, reproduce, republish, or sell them in any form. Some of this work may in the future be available to buy as prints.
The second kind is old historical photographs — school photos, street scenes, family groups and so on — which I’ve gathered, restored, or colourised, but to which I claim no ownership. These belong to history, and to the families and communities in them. If you’ve an interest in one — a school photo with your grandfather in it, say — get in touch and I’ll gladly share what I have. All I’d ask in return is a little courtesy: a credit to the site where it’s due, and the same generosity passed on to the next person who comes looking.
One exception — my own family photographs. A few of the images here are my own family photographs, shared on these pages because they belong with the stories I’m telling. These aren’t part of the open archive above: they’re personal, and I’d ask that they not be copied, shared, or reused. By all means look — but please leave them with the family they belong to.
A particular word for media, publishers and commercial users. Newspapers, magazines, websites, broadcasters, authors, publishers and businesses of every stripe: nothing on this site is free for your use. Not the articles, not the images, not the research — none of it. The fact that a thing can be copied from a small website does not make it yours to take. If you are a commercial entity and you wish to use anything from One Irish Rover, you must ask first, in writing, and any use is by my permission alone and on my terms. A polite request will nearly always be met politely. Helping yourself will not.
Who owns what. The written pieces on this site are my own, unless stated otherwise. If you believe something here is yours and shouldn’t be, or should be credited differently, tell me through the Contact page and I’ll put it right.
Sharing your own material. If you send in a photograph, a story, or a correction — and I hope you will — you’re confirming it’s yours to share, and you’re giving me leave to publish it here, with thanks. You’re welcome to ask for it to be removed later.
Comments. Comments are warmly encouraged; this site is the better for them. They’re moderated, though, so there may be a wait before yours appears, and I reserve the right not to publish anything abusive, defamatory, or off in the weeds entirely. Play nicely and you’ll never notice the rule exists.
A word on accuracy — please do your own research
This site is offered for interest and enjoyment — a bit of local history, a few old stories, the odd ghost. It is not a work of reference, and it shouldn’t be treated as one.
I research as carefully as I can, but local history is a slippery business: names get muddled, dates disagree, records contradict one another with great confidence, and the occasional tale is more folklore than fact. So while everything here is offered in good faith, I make no claim that it’s all correct, and I can’t take responsibility for any errors — nor for anything that follows from someone relying on them. If you’re using this site for family history, genealogy, or anything that matters, please treat it as a starting point only and verify it against primary sources. Do your own digging; it’s half the pleasure anyway.
And if you find I’ve got something wrong, I’d be glad to hear it — many of the best corrections on this site have come from readers who knew better, and the record is the richer for them.
Other sites. Now and then I’ll link elsewhere. Where those links lead, and what those sites do with your information, is their affair, not mine.
Privacy
A short, honest word before the formal bit. One Irish Rover is a one-man affair — a heritage site, a newsletter, and a fair quantity of old photographs. I’ve no interest in your data beyond what’s needed to keep the place running, answer your messages, and send the newsletter to those who’ve asked for it. I don’t sell it, I don’t trade it, and I collect as little as I can get away with. What follows sets out the particulars, as plainly as I can manage.
Who’s responsible. There’s no company here, no office, no “we” — just me, writing as Trudger. If you’ve any question about your information, or you’d like to see, correct, or delete anything I hold, get in touch through the Contact page and I’ll see to it myself — there’s only me to ask.
What’s collected, and why.
Server logs. Like every website, the server automatically records basic technical information when a page is requested — things like browser type, operating system, the page you came from, the date and time, and an IP address. This is standard housekeeping: it keeps the site working, helps diagnose faults, and guards against attacks. It isn’t used to identify you personally.
Cookies. The site uses cookies — small text files stored by your browser — to help pages work properly and remember basic preferences. You can refuse or delete cookies at any time through your browser settings; the site will still work, though the odd convenience may not.
Comments. If you leave a comment, the comment itself, your chosen name, the date, and your IP address are stored and the comment is published. The IP is kept for security — to deal with spam or anything unlawful. You may also choose to be notified of follow-up comments by email; that’s entirely optional and you can stop it whenever you like.
The newsletter. If you subscribe to the free newsletter, your email address is stored for that purpose only. Subscription uses double opt-in — you’ll get an email asking you to confirm, so nobody can sign you up without your say-so. Every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link, and you can leave at any time.
Old photographs and family information. A good deal of this site is built from photographs and stories that readers kindly send in, or that appear in historical records. If something concerning you or your family appears here and you’d like it corrected or removed, simply ask through the Contact page and I’ll attend to it.
Your rights. Under data-protection law you have the right to ask what information I hold about you, to have it corrected if it’s wrong, to have it deleted, and to object to its use. In practice, what I hold is modest and scattered — a comment you left, perhaps, or your newsletter subscription — and I’m a one-man band, not a data department. So if you want something found, changed, or removed, contact me through the Contact page and tell me what it relates to — the name or email you used, the article you commented on, that sort of thing. With that to go on I’ll track down what I can and put it right. The more you can point me to, the better I’ll manage.
Sharing. I don’t sell or share your information with third parties for their own purposes. The only data that leaves my hands is what’s unavoidable in running the site — chiefly the email service that delivers the newsletter — and only ever for that stated purpose, never for sale.
Changes. If this policy changes, the updated version will appear on this page.
That’s the lot. If anything here is unclear, or you simply want to know what I’ve got on file, the Contact page reaches me — and only me.
— Trudger