IRISH LAND RECORDS

Whilst our Irish ancestors may have regularly come and gone throughout history, the landscape of Ireland itself has towered over all of their stories as a constant. At times the story of the island has intruded into their stories directly, motivating our ancestors’ passions and struggles for justice, whilst at other moments it has stood by passively, silently observing. If we ignore the landscape of our Irish ancestors, we will be ignoring one of the most crucial elements of their ancestral stories, and a key family history resource.

When carrying out family research in Ireland, we usually start with the civil registration records generated by the state (available at and ), which document births, marriages and deaths, and then travel further back with the use of parish records of varying denominations. As well as containing information about individuals, many of these records will also note where a person was based when an event happened; in some records this may be a simple townland reference (a subdivision of a parish), but in more urban areas, addresses may be given, with details also offered on the administrative boundaries within which an event happened, such as a parish, a registrar’s district, and a poor law union. Surviving Irish censuses from 1901 and 1911 (available at ) can help to flesh their stories out further, noting landlords’ names and even information about the properties within which people lived. This can include details about the ‘class’ of houses, determined from details of the property’s physical build, as well as descriptions of outbuildings that may