Census data since 1926 available to all and just a few keystrokes away

BY THE NUMBERS: CSO MAKES CENSUS INFORMATION AVAILABLE ONLINE:RESULTS OF every census conducted in Ireland over the last 83 years were yesterday made available online to the public for the first time.

The historical, census volumes from 1926 to 1991 have been scanned in and published on the website of the Central Statistics Office. Access to this data was only available from the CSO on request, to certain persons and in paper format up until now. The CSO said it expects the volumes to be of “immense value” to researchers, academics and the public at large.

It details the statistical tables put together by the CSO rather than any of the census forms or identifying information.

In total the reports run to thousands of pages with each year divided into volumes and categories. The census of population years are 1926, 1936, 1946, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1979, 1981 and 1986, and 1991. Details of more recent censuses of 1996, 2002 and 2006 were already available online.

Many categories of information are not static across time as changes to match the society in different eras. Population is the first category in each census covering the numbers living in a certain town at a certain time. For example, the 1981 census reveals that Garinish Island in Co Cork had a population of just two, one man and one woman.

Levels of birth, marriage and death are also recorded as well as the ages of people in certain years. Thus the 1956 census reveals that in Cavan there were just 679 women aged 20 to 24 to every 1,000 men of that age.

Migration patterns both between counties and countries also offers much scope for research. Thus in the 1991 census some 670,000 people said they were born outside of the State compared with just 67,000 people in the 1926 census.

Birth places can also provide some interesting information. The 1926 census revealed that 184 people born outside the State were classified “born at sea.”

Occupation covers the age of people working in various counties and jobs. They reflect the change in the last 80 years away from agriculture and the increased participation of women in the paid labour market.

The census has also closely followed the peaks and troughs of the Irish language in the State, even detailing the number of Irish speakers in households in Gaeltacht areas. There were over 500,000 Irish speakers in the State in 1926 which rose quite consistently to over one million Irish speakers by 1991.

The 1936 census tells a stark story of the Dublin tenements. It shows that over 75,000 people in Dublin lived in dwellings with three or more people per room.

The thousands of pages of data also cover many other categories over the years such as fertility of marriage, educational qualifications, travel to work and dependency.

The historical census data is available free of charge on the CSO website at www.cso. ie/census/historical_reports.htm.