April 2026 marks a milestone for Irish genealogy with the release of the 1926 Census records – the first census after the establishment of the Irish Free State.
This census captured a population of 2,971,992 (a 5.3% decrease from 1911) and provides crucial insights into post-independence Ireland, with 92.6% identifying as Catholic and 18.3% reporting Irish language ability.
For genealogists, these records offer comprehensive household information including names, relationships, birthplaces, occupations, and marriage details – bridging the significant gap between the 1911 Census and later records.
The National Archives’ digitisation project is converting over 700,000 return sheets using advanced scanning and transcription technology, ensuring these valuable documents will be freely available online.
The genealogical community has long anticipated this release, particularly as other countries have made comparable records available earlier. For many researchers with elderly relatives, these records may provide the final pieces in family history puzzles that span the formative years of the Irish state, while for others it will be a starting point in their journey to discover their Irish heritage.
Who will I look up first? For me, it will be my paternal grandparents who died tragically within three months of one another in December 1944 and February 1945, when my father was just nine years old. I’ve long wondered where Mary Catherine Foley and John Francis Hassett were living and working in 1926, just four years before their marriage. This represents a significant gap in my research, and I’m eager to discover whether they were still in their birthplaces of Cromane, Co. Kerry and Knockanean near Ennis, Co. Clare, or if they had already begun their journeys toward Dublin where they eventually wed in 1930, before they ended up in Donegal, Kerry and then Cork.
When released in April 2026, the 1926 Census will serve not only as a powerful genealogical resource but also as a window into the social and economic landscape of Ireland in its early years of independence. Who will you look up first?