The 1926 Census of Ireland: Find Your Grandparents, Free

The first census of independent Ireland, taken on 18 April 1926, covering 2,971,992 people, is now free to search at the National Archives, with the original household returns to view. Here's how to find your family in it, and in the complete 1901 and 1911 censuses beside it.

Last checked October 2026

What the 1926 Census is

The census taken on 18 April 1926 was the first census of the Irish Free State, the young, independent Ireland your grandparents or great-grandparents may have lived in, emigrated from, or been born into. It counted 2,971,992 people across more than 750,000 household and enumerator returns.

Census records are normally sealed for 100 years under the Statistics Act 1993. When the 1926 returns reached that mark, the National Archives of Ireland released them free online on 18 April 2026: searchable by name and place, with transcripts alongside digitised images of the original returns, in the same style as the 1901 and 1911 censuses. The Archives will keep refining the dataset in phases over the following year.

Two honest caveats. The original paper returns are fragile and are not available for public consultation. This is a digital-only record. And a redaction and opt-out exist for anyone born before 18 April 1926 who is still living, so a very small number of entries may be withheld.

Why it matters for a roots trip: 1926 is often the first census where relatives you actually remember, or were told stories about, appear as named people in a household. It bridges the gap between the 1911 census and the emigration records many families hold.

How to search it

Work from what your family already holds (a name, an approximate year, a county or a townland) and search the National Archives site by name or place. Then widen out:

• Start with the fullest name you have and the county you believe the family lived in; narrow by townland or street if you know it.
• Open the household, not just the person. A census return shows everyone under the roof that night: relationships, ages and occupations. The neighbours on the same page are often kin.
• Try spelling variants. Names were written as the enumerator heard them, and the free National Archives search is literal; the licensed versions on subscription sites add surname-variant matching.
• Note the townland and the DED (district electoral division) from the return. Those two pieces of geography unlock the older records: Griffith's Valuation, the Tithe Applotment Books and the parish registers.
• If a family seems to vanish between 1911 and 1926, emigration is the usual explanation. The household in 1926 may be the parents who stayed, which is its own kind of answer.

The 1901 and 1911 censuses: all 32 counties

Beside 1926 sit the two complete survivals: the 1901 and 1911 censuses, every-name searchable transcripts for all 32 counties, linked to scans of the original forms, the Form A household return, the enumerator's abstract, and the house and building returns that describe the house itself: its rooms, windows and roof material.

You can search by name, county, townland or street, age, sex, relationship, occupation and religion, with wildcards. More than 100,000 corrections sent in by users since 2017 have been folded into the data. For most families these two censuses are where the search starts: find the household in 1911, walk it back to 1901, then forward into 1926.

If your family was in Northern Ireland

Be prepared for a gap: Northern Ireland's 1926 household returns were destroyed, believed lost during the Second World War. Only the published reports survive, held by NISRA, some as PDFs and tables, which give statistics, not your family's names.

The household-level route for the six counties is therefore 1901 and 1911, which cover the whole island, followed by civil registration records and parish registers. Our Trace Your Irish Roots pathway lays out that sequence step by step.

Earlier still: the 1821–1851 fragments

Most pre-1901 Irish census returns were destroyed in the Public Record Office fire of 1922, but fragments survive and are searchable on the same National Archives census site by year, surname, county, parish and townland, with transcripts and scans: parts of Cavan, Fermanagh, Galway, King's County (today's Offaly) and Meath for 1821; Londonderry for 1831; Cavan, Cork, Fermanagh and Waterford for 1841; and for 1851, Antrim, one Belfast ward, an index of Dublin city heads of household, and Fermanagh.

The 1841 and 1851 fragments are uniquely precious: they also list family members who were absent on census night, and those who had died since the previous census, pre-Famine gold for the few places covered.

Turn the record into a trip

A census return gives you the two things a heritage trip is built from: a townland and a household. Stand in that townland, find the parish church and graveyard, and the names on the page become a place. Our Coming Home guide covers how to build a trip around it, and the surname map shows where your name itself was rooted in 1890.