Documents from the archives show the Department of Foreign Affairs receiving many requests from people looking for relatives in Australia in the age before online communication.
In many cases people who emigrated to Australia lost touch with their relatives at home who had no way of tracing them.
The National Archives contains numerous requests between 1990 and 1994 on the cusp of the era of email, social media and Zoom calls which we take for granted nowadays.
One case involves a man who was living and working in Canberra for a number of years. The department note read that the direct relatives of the man, who they had lost contact with for three years, were now “urgently” trying to find a way to get in touch as “his mother is very ill”.
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To help with department attempts to contact him, they provided his full name, last known address, passport application details and passport number, as well as his last known employment, which officials said might be of use in tracking down his current address.
The files do not reveal if they were successful.
A second case involved a long-term emigrant who was originally from Co Kerry and, now in his 70s, had been hit by a car while walking and was not expected to live.
While Australian police in Canberra contacted department officials in Ireland to help track down his relatives back home, a record noted that as the phone book had “two columns” of people with the same name this would take some time.