I was born in 1952 in Millom, Cumberland to an Irish father, Ivan James Irwin, and a Cumbrian mother, Bessie (née Park). My family history research has been centred on Co. Sligo in Ireland and within the boundaries of modern Cumbria: the pre-1974 counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire (the Furness peninsula), but has also led me further afield, both within the British Isles and overseas.