CLARE, Rev. Wallace. Irish Genealogical Guides. A guide to copies & abstracts of Irish Wills. (First Series). Edited by Rev. Wallace Clare.

March: Sharman & Co., 1930. First edition. Quarto. pp. [ii], 111, 1 (list of subscribers). Full green buckram. Limited edition to 200 copies. Previous Loosely inserted is a prospectus for his works. A fine copy. Very scarce.
Wallace George Clare (1895-1963), priest and genealogist, was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, the only son of Frederick Clare, wine buyer, and Agnes Clare (née Keegan). His father died when Wallace was two years old, and his mother brought him and his sister up in Lowestoft, where he attended Lowestoft College. He spent a year in St. Wilfred’s College and some time in Paris, and was ordained (1918) as a Roman Catholic priest; his conversion from Anglicanism had taken place in 1908 while he was still at school.

From 1940 to 1963 he was chaplain to St Joseph’s College, Ipswich and it was from his rooms there that Clare ran the Irish Genealogical Society almost single-handedly for twenty-seven years. He first suggested founding the society in 1936, was its secretary and archivist till his death, and was its first fellow (elected 15 March 1937). Clare worked on theology, ecclesiastical history, and educational history, but devoted most of his energy to Irish genealogy. He was one of the first scholars who sought to foster a wider interest in this subject: he published A Young Irishman’s Diary(1928), the diary of his grandfather, John Keegan of Moate, County Westmeath; several genealogical guides; and A Simple Guide to Irish Genealogy (1937), a pioneering handbook that was widely used.

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