The Committee for the Fourth Irish Genealogical Congress has announced that Vivien Costello will be the keynote speaker for Congress' opening dinner. Ms. Costello, chairman of the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations and joint founder of the Irish section of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, has been involved in genealogical circles since the early-1980s.

The Fourth IGC is scheduled for 17-23 September 2001. While all lectures will take place at Trinity College, Dublin, the opening dinner will be at the Hilton Hotel, along the Grand Canal, Dublin, and the closing banquet will be at Clontarf Castle.

The Irish Genealogical Congress is an international conference dealing with family history and related subjects of interest to the Irish worldwide. It is open to anyone interested in Irish genealogy as a hobby or a profession.

Patron of the Congress is the Lord O'Neill of Antrim. Aideen M. Ireland, president of the IGC, is a senior archivist at the National Archives of Ireland and chairs the Society of Archivists, the organization of professional archivists in the British Isles.

Genealogists from Ireland who will address the Congress include (among many others): Eileen O'Duill, Helen Kelly, and Tony McCarthy. The program of lectures includes American specialists in Irish genealogy: Dwight Radford, Kyle Betit, Marie V. Melchiori, Elizabeth Kerstens, and R. Andrew Pierce.

The complete program for the week-long Congress is posted on the Web site. The Web site contains reservation details and a continually updated list of speakers and events.