1801

The Act of Union to join England and Ireland came into effect.

1818–1924

Date range for the Registered Papers of the Chief Secretary’s Office, Dublin. These include ‘State of the Country Papers’ and ‘Outrage Papers’, some of which contain background reports of incidents which led to individuals being transported to Australia.

1821

First official government Census of Ireland. The vast majority of householder schedules from this census were destroyed in the 1922 Public Record Office fire but some volumes survived for counties Fermanagh, Cavan, Galway, Offaly and Meath. Detailed abstracted statistical information for this, and the subsequent census, was published in the British Parliamentary Papers.

1823–1838

Tithe applotment. A tax on all farm produce used for the upkeep of the Protestant Church of Ireland — the ‘Established’ church in Ireland — paid by Catholics as well as Protestants even though the Protestant community was greatly in the minority. It caused great resentment among the Catholic majority, and tithes were responsible for much agrarian strife. Around 1834 a record of those liable to pay tithes was compiled and this became known as the ‘Tithe Applotment’. Very valuable as it records every landholder in the country in the years before the Great Famine of 1845–1850.

1824

Establishment of the Irish Ordnance Survey office. From 1829 to 1842 Ireland was mapped at a scale of six inches to one mile (15.24 centimetres to 1.609 kilometres). These maps reveal the landscape — fields, farm houses etc. — from which millions of people emigrated to America, Australia, Great Britain and other destinations.

1829

The Catholic Emancipation Act allowed Catholics to enter parliament and to hold public office. Repeal of the last of the Penal Laws allowed Catholics to practise their religion and have events legally recorded in parish registers.

1831

Establishment of the Irish ‘National School’ system. By the 1850s this state-subsidised system had spread throughout Ireland. School rolls survived for some schools, especially in the northern part of the country and information on teachers is held in the National Archives of Ireland.

1831

Census of Ireland. The records for this census were destroyed in the 1922 Public Record Office fire but some householder schedules survive in the National Archives, especially for County Derry.

1837

Publication of Memoir of the City and North Western Liberties of Londonderry, Parish of Templemore. The so-called Ordnance Survey memoirs were to be compiled during the mapping of Ireland. They were to contain details about every parish in Ireland ranging across agriculture, education, religion, emigration and general social information. Only one, that for Templemore, County Derry, was ever published but the manuscript material for many northern counties survived and was published in a series for each county in the 1990s.

1838

The Irish ‘Poor Law Act’ introduced the English ‘poor law’ system to Ireland with its union workhouses and oversight of each ‘union’ by a Board of Guardians. The ‘Minute Books’ of the boards survive in many instances and a few of the ‘Indoor Registers', which list in some detail those seeking refuge in the workhouse, are extant.

1841

The Census of Ireland recorded population at 8,175,000. Like the previous two censuses, most of the records were destroyed in the 1922 Public Record Office fire.

1845

Civil registration of Protestant marriages began.

1845–1849

The Great Famine. The potato blight caused a potato famine. About a million people died and many more migrated. The west and southwest of Ireland were the worst affected.

1848–1864

Griffith’s valuations. The first full scale valuation of property in Ireland, overseen by Richard Griffith. It is one of the most important surviving 19th-century genealogical sources.

1849–1857

Landed Estate Court or Encumbered Estates Court. Designed to facilitate the sale of estates whose owners could not invest enough to make them productive. Records contain rentals and maps drawn up for sales.

1851

Census of Ireland. Again the vast bulk of the records have not survived, although there is some original material for parishes in County Antrim.