April 2014

1911 census return of Timothy Kelly and family of Martin’s Row, New Kilmainham, Dublin, in which Mr Kelly, a searcher in the Public Record Office of Ireland, writes the following short poem at the bottom of the return:

“There now is my Census and faith I’ll go bail, You have all my house, from the head to the tail”

I think it only right to state, on April the 3rd, I’ll be 58;

Then I don’t know why, in the name of Heaven! that I should be required to put down 57

I’m not a young lady, I’m sorry to say; If I was, I’d be only 15 last birth day.

So now I’ve decided to put down 58, and to-morrow, my birthday, I shall celebrate.

(NAI, 1911 census, DED 57/7)

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