We have now an official date for its release: 18 April 2026. In just 15 months, professionals, family historians, hobbyists and regular historians will be sitting at their desks hitting refresh while we await the first Irish census release in more than 50 years (if we count the microfilm release of the previous two in the 1960s!) The Dept of Arts & Culture (who recently got a new minister, Patrick O’Donovan) will be hoping for a nice tourism bump.
The Irish Independent has a good article today on the plans for the release, which include launches in various locations around the world and an exhibition.
Below you can see an image of the blank form used in 1926. Details collected included name, age, sex, marital status, birthplace (more precise than previous censuses), religion, occupation plus employer as well as details about length of marriage (for both currently married and details about past marriages for those widowed), ability to speak Irish.
The Irish statute book gives more details on the categories with examples.
So how can you prepare? I’m going to start with making a list of people I want to look up and where I expect them to be and what age they would have been in 1926. I’ll be starting with my grandparents, who were all under 10 in 1926 so it’s the first time I’ll see them on the census. In fact, 18th April was one of my grandmother’s birthday, so I’ll start with her. Being small children, that should net me my 8 great-grandparents on the same 4 returns, but you never know! One of my great-grandfathers was in the Irish army at this time, so he might have been elsewhere on the night. A further one might have been working away from home, having started a new job in Ballymena a couple of months’ earlier (I’ve speculated before about whether this whole family moved with him immediately from Limerick or they went in stages).
After that, I’ll hit up my various 2x great-grandparents who were still alive in 1926. There is at least one 3x great-grandparent who lived until 1936 (though sadly not lasting until the census of that year) – but I don’t have the rest of these people’s dates of deaths off the top of my head. To be fair, there are 32 of them!
So on that first day, it’ll be all about my own family history, but inevitably I’ll be turning to my client’s families in due course. Over the past decade, there have been many times where I wished for the 1926 on a client project. Something tells me I might be checking up on a few of those, even though the projects are long completed!
The National Archives has a new website coming on 5th February (i.e. in 2 weeks’ time) but we’re not expecting the genealogy section to be updated yet. Maybe this will have to wait until next year too. I can’t wait to click on that year drop down box and finally see a new line. Still hoping for a proper e-catalogue and a way to order wills online!!
