What can Tithe Applotment Books tell me, and for which years?
The Tithe Applotment Books were compiled between 1823 and 1837 to fix the tithe, a tax payable to the Church of Ireland, owed by occupiers of agricultural land. A book survives for almost every civil parish. For each townland it gives the occupier's name, the amount of land held and the sum due. That can put a named family head on a townland a generation before Griffith's Valuation, which makes the books a working census substitute for the pre-Famine years. The limits matter: only heads of household appear, towns and cities were not covered, and wives, children and landless labourers are invisible. The books for the 26 counties are free on the National Archives site; the northern originals are held by PRONI.
Useful pages: The Irish surnames map · Trace your Irish roots · The 1926 Census guide · Coming home · Irish around the world · Plan your journey
Sources
- National Archives of Ireland: the 1901 and 1911 censuses, census fragments, Tithe Applotment Books and research guidance, nationalarchives.ie
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