80 million people globally claim Irish ancestry – why the release of 1926 Irish census records is so momentus

One hundred years after it was conducted, the first full census of independent Ireland is being released for free online. These nearly 3 million records will be of great significance to Ireland’s population, and a global diaspora of some 80 million claiming Irish ancestry.

As well as providing insight into socioeconomic circumstances following the establishment of Saorstát Éireann (the Irish Free State) in 1922, the 1926 census holds several keys to unravelling Ireland’s complicated past.

For many, this public release will help reconcile the enormous loss caused by the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland at the outset of the Irish civil war. An explosion laid waste to over 700 years of Irish historical records, including some of the 19th-century censuses.

In Ireland, public access to historical census returns is legally restricted for 100 years. Almost 16 years since the online release of the 1901 and 1911 household census returns, the demand for more genealogical records is palpable.

So, please be patient with the system (and the wonderful people behind it) as it will be busy. Excitement about previous census releases has crashed websites.

What the census could reveal

The 1926 census has some novel aspects compared with those conducted under British administration from 1821 to 1911. Although the Irish language was part of a bilingual question since 1851, the 1926 census offered the first opportunity to complete the form as Gaeilge (in Irish).

This census emphasised the “family” as the unit of inquiry, as opposed to the “household”, which was more inclusive of non-relatives cohabiting. As with past censuses, the name, age, sex, marital status/orphanhood, birthplace, language, religion and occupation of each person was documented in terms of their relationship to an appointed head of household.

A census provides the statistical underpinning to plan for future population needs. In the 1920s, the world was reeling from excess young adult mortality – a combination of the first world war and the global influenza pandemic. Ireland was no exception.

Aggregate reports from the 1926 census convey concerns about the declining population, delayed age at marriage and marital fertility.

Perhaps reflecting the remit of the responsible Department of Industry and Commerce (Statistics Branch), the 1926 census sought more precise information than previous censuses about employment and employers. The reports show that of 1,223,014 “gainfully employed” people over the age of 12, 53% were engaged in agriculture.

But regional variations were marked. In Dublin City, heartland of the pejoratively termed “beer and biscuits” economy, that figure was as low as 0.9%. In counties like Galway, agricultural dependency was as high as 75%.

Only 6% of the population was categorised as “unemployed”, most of which was temporary. Some jobs had residential components and, of those, the 14,145 “professed clergymen and nuns” outnumbered the 13,869 non-commissioned members of the recently reduced Óglaigh na hÉireann (Irish army).

The records released on April 18 tell us even more about the men, women and children behind these statistics, what their domestic lives were like, and the parts they played in Saorstát Eireann.

Mysteries of history

Like many, I approach the release with questions about my own family, such as where my grandparents were at the time.

My first search will be for deceased loved ones like my darling uncle Eamon. He will be among the infants recorded in 1926, who went on to contribute to the Bailiúchán na Scol or Schools’ Collection – a compilation of folklore compiled by Irish schoolchildren in the 1930s. Something was definitely in my eye when I found him in there a few years ago.

There are also several wider socioeconomic, cultural and political aspects to this census that I will explore.

I am interested in teasing out the relationship between the populace and the newly-formed An Gárda Síochána, the unarmed police force established in 1926 who acted as census takers. For example, did they encourage participation, or instil a reticence to engage, among those who opposed the Irish Free State government?

Related to this is whether Dublin’s sex work district, Monto, endured the moral panic that swept across Europe following the Great War. My work with Rachel Murphy on the 1911 census found several young women as sole occupants of tenement rooms, which would normally be inhabited by entire families. Will similar patterns emerge when we examine the streets of Monto in 1926?

It will be possible to investigate the ages of older cohorts alongside court records. This may challenge the well-worn jokes about those who allegedly aged more than ten years between the 1901 and 1911 censuses, in order to qualify for the old-age pension.

For scholars of migration, birthplace will be a critical data point, to trace Northern Irish Catholics seeking refuge from sectarian conflict.

Sadly, the equivalent 1926 Northern Irish returns were lost through suspected improper housing and archival neglect. This inhibits future research on the 106,456 decrease in the Protestant population from the 1911 census. Some of this reflected the departure of British Crown forces, but the majority were those fleeing the Irish Free State for political and safety reasons.

Tips for your census search

Household census returns are an excellent source of information about past family and kinship networks. But it is best to manage expectations and think creatively around naming conventions, derivatives and spelling variations. Ditto for place names – but there is a useful historical mapping tool that could help. Bear in mind also that several streets were renamed after 1922.

As a general rule, the upper echelons of Irish society are easier to find in official records than lower socioeconomic groups. My work shows how census returns are often the only official record of ordinary lives.

To protect the privacy of residents in hospitals, asylums, prisons, county homes (erstwhile workhouses) and other carceral institutions on census night, only their initials were recorded. This makes patients and inmates tricky to find, but a rough idea of age and location will prove helpful.

For the more well-documented Irish, the 1926 census offers a conduit to the delights of other freely available online collections, like the civil registration of births deaths and marriages on irishgenealogy.ie.

Ciara Breathnach receives funding from Research Ireland.