The 1926 Census of Ireland

An interesting little booklet arrived in the post yesterday. It gives an overview of the 1926 census, which has just been made available online. This was the first census to be taken after the end of the War of Independence , the Irish Civil War, and the creation of the Irish Free State. The census was taken on April 18th 1926 (i.e. 100 years ago yesterday) and the total population recorded was just 2,971, 992, a drop of 168,000 compared to the 1911 census (for the same 26 counties; this being after partition, the six counties of Northern Ireland are not included). The current population of the Republic is around 5.3 million. This is indeed a full release of the census: not only names and numbers but also complete digital scans of all the returns can be downloaded. It’s fascinating to see the actually hand-written forms. Out of curiosity I searched for the surname “Coles” in the 1926 census using the online platform and found only 25 entries, most of them in Wexford but also a small…