The 1926 census of the Irish Free State, released online on 18 April, challenges the perception of early independent Ireland as a monocultural and insular society. The digitised archive, comprising over 700,000 pages, provides intimate details of 2.9 million people, including immigrants from Britain, America, France, Italy, Germany, Egypt and beyond.
Historian John Gibney of the Royal Irish Academy noted that immigrants could be found across the country, contradicting the image of a dour, conservative society. 'There’s far more variety than might sometimes be assumed,' he said, adding that the 1920s were a globalised era with cultural currents reaching Ireland.
The census reveals Germans working on a Siemens hydroelectric scheme in Limerick, an India-born Hindu law student in Dublin, and foreign tourists holidaying in Irish hotels. Poverty and unemployment drove many natives to emigrate, but the new state offered opportunities for others.
The National Archives of Ireland spent €5 million (£4.3 million) and employed a team of 50 to restore, catalogue and digitise the records from 1,344 boxes. Unlike the UK’s 1921 census, the Irish census is freely accessible without a paywall. Each entry covers 21 topics, including age, sex, occupation, religion and Irish language ability.
Police officers who collected the returns added local knowledge, sometimes revealing hidden family secrets. In one case, a granddaughter was recorded as a daughter to conceal an unmarried mother; in another, a farmer’s marriage to his housekeeper was omitted from the form.
Scholars hope the census will shed light on the 32% decline in the non-Catholic population between 1911 and 1926, attributed to World War I casualties, the influenza pandemic and the withdrawal of the British garrison.
