Written by Daniel Loftus
The 1926 Irish Census: A Landmark for Irish Family History
It has just been over two months since the 1926 Irish Census was released for public inspection by the National Archives. This census is the first historic glimpse we get into Irish society at the time when the former Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland later split with 26 counties became the Irish Free State in December 1921 when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, marking the new partition enforced. We were meant to have a census in 1921, but this was prolonged until 1926 as at the time when the census was supposed to be taken we were in the height of the Irish War of Independence and subsequent Civil War (1922-1923). It was a tremendous milestone both in a genealogical capacity and a public capacity, the event marking a census release, something that Ireland had not seen in over 60 years.
In 1961, the de facto Minister for Justice, Charles Haughey TD, had issued a ministerial order, green lighting the release of the 1901 and 1911 census to the public, despite only 60 and 50 years having elapsed for each one at the time. The 1901 and 1911 Censuses would eventually be digitised and uploaded online by the National Archives of Ireland between December 2007 to August 2009. But, those two record sets would be an exception to a piece of legislation introduced in 1993. This legislation was the Statistics Act, 1993 – which had stipulated that 100 years would have to pass before a historic census could be released meant that any historical census taking place would be subject to a 100 year moratorium before we would get the chance to see it. This was the case for the 1926 Census, the returns released to the public to view for the very first time at midnight on Saturday, April 18th, 2026.
What Makes the Irish Census So Valuable for Genealogy?
It had captured a glimpse of some never before seen parts of Irish history, for example, the 1926 Census is the first such census which enumerates some well-known mother and baby homes namely Bessborough House in Cork and St. Mary’s in Tuam, Galway. Those had been an interesting find in itself as it showed that the way in which they had been enumerated had not been a traditional one. As there were only two forms in the 1926 Census, form A and B, I was definitely curious to see how people who were residing within a mother and baby home at the time were recorded. Had they been existed and enumerated in the 1911 Census, they likely would have been recorded on a Form I – an institutional return.
The expectation with a Form I would be that you would not be privy to the entire information contained within it. More often than not, identifying details such as an individual’s name would be reduced to only a set of initials. For Bessborough and Tuam, they had not followed that convention and had instead named the children, mothers and attendants who resided in them, even giving a snapshot as to what role they had within the institution itself. It will open a number of routes for us to pursue to learn more about our families. In some cases, it might help us to work out why they may not have been where they were compared the prior census. [While I had already known about it before this, Annie-Mae’s parents were in America during the 1911 Ireland census prior to 1926]. It is another clue in the collective jigsaw of tools we can use to learn more about our ancestors.
Why the 1926 Irish Census Matters for Future Family History Research
On the day it was released, I was invited onto IrelandAM, a morning TV show here in Ireland to talk about the release and the importance of it. The day in itself was electric, there were so many people, both in the genealogy sphere and those who weren’t taking a look into a newly released historical record. I had stayed up until midnight to watch the new record set launch. This census was particularly special for me as it was the first time that anyone I had been alive at the same time as was in a census. I saw my grandmother, Annie-Mae who was only 3 ½ years old with her siblings and parents in Ballurecleragh, Kiltimagh, Mayo seeing a snapshot of my grandmother and her history marked at a changing time in Ireland, both socially and economically. Having ventured into Dublin City the same day after the interview, I overheard so many conversations about discoveries that they had made into their family history through the 1926 Census and all I could do was just smile.
It was one of the few times I had seen something like this manifest in a non-genealogy social setting. Even better for me as a young genealogist, seeing my peers have a sense of wonderment when they had shown their friends their relatives in the census – it was (as proven by a number of comments I had received across social media) that this was a source of inspiration for young people to embark on their genealogy journey, that they were so intrigued it made them want to discover more. Regardless of age group, seeing and learning about your family’s history can give you a sense of belonging, in knowing where you come from and in some situations be part of the living memory who knew of someone alive during this census. More often than not, people search for an anchor point to grab interest & this census release certainly gives a new avenue to entice people to learn more about their family’s past.
