Search your family history as 1926 Census is published online
THE publication of the records of the 1926 Census for the first time has been marked at an official state function at Dublin Castle, hosted by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan.
The National Archives officially released the 1926 Census records at midnight, following the expiration of the one-hundred-year limitation on their publication under the Statistics Act 1993.
The entire census is now freely available and fully searchable on nationalarchives.ie, with the records providing an unprecedented resource, allowing users to efficiently navigate detailed household returns from 1926.
The preparation of the 1926 Census for public release has been a major project for the National Archives and the State, supported by a €5 million government investment.
The initiative which took almost three years, saw the careful conservation, preservation, high-resolution digitisation, and transcription of over 750,000 individual household and enumerator returns.
Speaking at Dublin Castle today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin commented: “I’m honoured to mark the official release of Census 1926 by the National Archives, the first census undertaken by the independent Irish Free State.
“When we think back to 1926, ten years after the Easter Rising and following a decade of conflict and upheaval, from the War of Independence to the Civil War, Census 1926 shows the ambition of the new state to carry-out a census of the 2.9 million people living in Ireland as part of its programme of nation-building and to do so, so soon after independence was a bold and visionary decision. As such, Census 1926 marks a historic moment in the development of modern Ireland.
“For people across Ireland, the release of the 1926 Census offers something deeply personal. It allows us to step back in time and encounter our own families, neighbours and communities as they were almost a century ago. It brings history out of the abstract and into the everyday.”
To mark the release of the 1926 census, the National Archives has opened a major exhibition that explores what life was like in the newly independent Ireland of 1926.
"Using contemporary documents and images, audio-visual displays and, above all, the census returns themselves, The Story of Us explores the 1926 census to present a picture of life in Ireland in 1926: from sport and entertainment to language, culture, religion, gender and the working lives of the inhabitants of the Irish Free State a century ago.
The exhibition will run at Dublin Castle, opening to the public from April 19 until August 15, 2027. The exhibition will visit London and Boston, before touring Ireland, as part of a partnership with 10 local authorities, as well as a visit to the National Ploughing Championships in September.
As well as the exhibition, the Census 1926 public programme also includes a number of other key components.
A new book, The Story Of Us - Independent Ireland and the 1926 Census, has been published by Irish Academic Press and is on sale now. Featuring contributions from key members of the National Archives team and leading social historians, the book captures a number of unique perspectives on the census and the Ireland in which it was taken.
On June 4, the National Archives, in partnership with the OPW, will host the Exploring the 1926 Census Conference, a full-day programme of keynote lectures, thematic panels, and discussions, exploring the census as both a historical document and a contemporary resource.
The Good Luck Club, presented by ANU Productions, will run on site at the National Archives, opening on May 27, while a major two-part documentary series, Come to your Census, will air on RTÉ television next month, with an accompanying six-part RTÉ podcast series released today.