Catholic parish records
For the period before 1864, church records provide the only record of most baptisms, marriages and burials. Catholic parish registers are normally still held by the parish priest, but microfilms of most of them for the period up to c.1880 are held in the National Library of Ireland. The National Archives has a copy of the National Library’s list of the registers available online at www.nli.ie/en/parish-register.aspx and the names and addresses of the clergy are given in the annual Irish Catholic Directory.
Church of Ireland parish records
Notwithstanding the destruction of much material due to the fire in the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922, Church of Ireland registers survive for about one-third of the parishes throughout the country and those for the pre-1870 period are public records. Many Church of Ireland registers are still held by the local clergy, although some are in the National Archives, the Representative Church Body Library, Dublin and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast.
There are microfilm or other copies in the National Archives of the surviving Church of Ireland registers for the dioceses of Ferns, Glendalough, Kildare and Meath, as well as many from other parts of the country and a list of the parish registers on microfilm and their respective microfilm numbers held in the National Archives can be searched online.
PRONI holds copies of all surviving Church of Ireland registers for the dioceses of Armagh, Clogher, Connor, Derry, Dromore, Down, Kilmore and Raphoe. As well as covering all six counties of Northern Ireland, these dioceses also cover counties Cavan, Donegal, Louth, Monaghan and part of county Leitrim which are in the Republic. Copies of those registers from within the Republic which were microfilmed by PRONI, are held by the RCB Library.
A list of all Church of Ireland parish registers which indicate whether they survive and where they might be held, is available in the National Archives and is reproduced in A Table of Church of Ireland Parochial Records and Copies by Noel Reid (Naas, 1994) while the names and addresses of the clergy are given in the annual Church of Ireland Directory. A list and a card index of registers in the National Archives as well as lists of transcripts and abstracts may also be consulted in the Reading Room.
Records of marriage licences provide information concerning some Church of Ireland marriages before 1845. People wishing to obtain a licence to marry without having banns called were required to enter into a bond with the bishop of the diocese. The licences and bonds do not survive (in most cases), but the indexes to the bonds lodged in each Diocesan Court and the Prerogative Court are available in the Reading Room, some of which have been published. Betham’s abstracts of Prerogative and Dublin Diocesan marriage licences give further details while other records of marriage licences are indexed in the testamentary card index, available to consult in the Room Room.
Alternative research sources
Supplementary to the registers themselves, alternative research sources include thirteen volumes of searches in Church of Ireland parish registers from correspondents interested in baptismal or marriage dates with a view to establishing their age (the need of correspondents to establish their ages was consequent on the Old Age Pension Act of 1908).While many of the searches were negative, those which were positive provide valuable genealogical data though they are not copies of church records and cannot be used to recreate lost registers. There is a comprehensive finding aid in the National Archives to all parishes covered by those searches and it is also available to consult on this site in .pdf format.
Another source for research is the religious census of 1766, authorised by the Irish House of Lords in March of that year "to return a list of the several families in their parishes to this House on the first Monday after the Recess, distinguishing which are Protestants and which are Papists, as also a list of the several reputed Popish priests and friars residing in their parishes" - a list of the returns for each diocese is available to consult on this site in .pdf format.
An additional source of research is the transcripts of parish registers made for genealogical purposes. While much of the abstracted data is relevant to a given surname only, the wealth of material transcribed can lead to partial reconstruction of registers. Among the best of these genealogical transcripts must be mentioned the parish searches undertaken by Gertrude Thrift (mainly for Dublin), by James Grove White (mainly for Cork), by Tenison Groves and by TU Sadlier. Some collections are indexed according to surname, of which the Thift Abstracts are the best example, otherwise the listing is according to parish. Parish registers searched for genealogical purposes will be found listed in the M [miscellaneous] finding aids in the National Archives or listed by the surname of the researcher, for example in the "Thrift" card index.
Copies of parish registers still extant which have been microfilmed or copied will be found listed in the Church of Ireland card index in the National Archives. Copies of vestry minutes and preachers' books etc will also be found enumerated and indexed under the name of the parish.
In the 1950s and again in the 1980s, a systematic programme of microfilming Church of Ireland parish registers was undertaken, with the most comprehensive filming being done in the eastern part of the country. There is a card index to all filmed parish registers for the 1950s filming, arranged under the name of the parish. There are bound finding aids to the later filming - bound by diocese and then arranged according to union and then by parish. The microfilms of Church of Ireland parish registers are freely available to the public.
Further information on Church of Ireland
records, their survival or otherwise, may
be obtained from the manuscript volume kept
in the Reading Room of the
National Archives entitled "Table of
Parochial Records and Copies", compiled by Margaret Griffith from parochial
returns made c.1875 and 1876 (see Appendix
to the Ninth Report of the Deputy Keeper
of the Public Records in Ireland) and updated
returns made in 1891 (see Appendix to the
Twenty Third Report of the Deputy Keeper
of the Records in Ireland).
The "Table
of Parochial Records" is updated on
a continuing basis to include information
on the microfilming project undertaken in
the 1950s and to record those records, or
copies thereof, now in the custody of the
Representative Church Body Library, Dublin.
Map of the dioceses of the Church of Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century