Dr. Johnson said of his dictionary, 'Many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of the undertaking, than to the negligence of the performer.' And so say I.

Casper Wyoming in the late 1800s and early 1900s had a large Irish immigrant population. Some came as late as the 1950s. Most were from a small area of West Cork centered around Bantry. Others came from Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Longford, Mayo, Offaly, Rosscommon, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, and Wicklow.

Register attempts to list all these pioneers, their birthplaces, their birth and arrival dates, their spouses, and a bit of their stories. Register is published in two forms: A book, and a computer program. Both contain the same information. The program makes searches easy.

Ideally, the project should have been undertaken when memories were fresh, when the pioneers could testify for themselves. Nevertheless, my list contains over 500 names. I never imagined that there were so many. The information came from family and from friends, from books and newspaper articles, from courthouse naturalization records, and from the world wide web.

Diversity of sources is both a strength and a weakness. If a name comes from two or more sources, there may be contradictory details, and it's sometimes difficult to know whether it designates one or more persons. Duplications undoubtedly exist.

The list grew quickly when I was given a list culled from naturalization records in the Natrona County District Court, and again when I expanded the search of these records. Perhaps 75% of the names came from this source. Put it another way: 75% of the immigrants had been forgotten. Now I ask, how many more of the forgotten moved on before naturalization or did not participate in the naturalization process. I believe the true count is larger still.

A few names are questionable. A lady, born in Scotland, lived last in Dublin; a man from England lived last in Belfast; an immigrant to Connecticut was naturalized while he was stationed at Casper Air Force Base. (I had chosen not to record another Air Force naturalization when I gathered data.) Marcus Daly, entered in error, belongs more properly to History.

There are tables listing the immigrants in Name order, Maiden Name order (equivalently, gender order), County order, and ID order. The text sections are:

History tells how the immigration began.

How To explains how to install and use the computer program. It defines abbreviations and codes used in both the book and the program.

Issues is a multi-purpose section. It addresses the validity of information. It contains information about families, when that information is too complex for the lists.

The Big Wind tells the story of a famous, terrible, destructive storm that hit Ireland in 1839, six years before the potato famine (not a famine at all since there was ample food for export!).

Notes collects in one place the short biographies from the tables.

Sources identifies, by cross reference, the sources of information on both general topics and individuals. It also lists novels, videos, websites, and histories of great and general interest.

Additions, etc. . . is a timeline of changes to Register.

The Last Sheep Drive is Brigid Schulte's loving description of the sheep drive preceding her uncles’ sale of the sheep ranch that had been owned by the Ellis family for eight decades.

I have been careful, and hope that there are few errors. I welcome additions and corrections, and intend to publish supplements.