When Were Irish Censuses Taken?

A census was taken in Ireland every ten years from 1821 until 1911. A census was also taken in 1926. Only a few of the census details for Ireland survive, however, which makes tracing family history in Ireland very difficult.

All the census records for 1861 to 1891 were actually destroyed by the government and only a few sections of the census returns for 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 survived a fire in the record office in Dublin in 1922. This also destroyed a lot of parish registers that were held there.

Unlike in England and Wales, the early censuses taken in 1821 and 1831 do actually list the names of individual people, so, if they do survive for your ancestor, they are a lot more useful than the English census records of the same years. The 1901 and 1911 census records were released to the public long before the same year censuses for England and Wales.