CHURCH RECORDS

Catholic Records.
Nature of Catholic Records.
Baptisimal Records.
Marriage Records.
Catholic Record Locations.
Research in Catholic Records.

Church of Ireland Records.

Presbyterian Records.

Methodist Records.

Quaker Records.

Jewish Records. 

 

Browse Sections

THE RECORDS

COUNTIES

EMIGRATION

ADDRESSES

HOW TO

LINKS

ARTICLES
Catholic Church Records

Before the start of civil registration for all in 1864, virtually the only direct sources of family information for the vast majority of the population are the local parish records. However, because of the disadvantages suffered by the Catholic Church from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, record-keeping was understandably difficult, and very few registers survive from before the latter half of the eighteenth century. The earliest Catholic Church parish records in the country appear to be the fragments for Waterford and Galway cities, dating from the 1680s, and for Wexford town, dating from 1671. Generally speaking, early records tend to come from the more prosperous and Anglicized areas, in particular the towns and cities of the eastern half of the island. In the poorest and most densely populated rural parishes of the West and North, those which saw most emigration, the parish registers very often do not start until the mid or late nineteenth century. However, the majority of Catholic registers begin in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and even in poor areas, records were often kept from an earlier date.

The only way to be sure of the extent of surviving records is to check the individual parish. The National Library catalogue, available at the counter in the main reading room, is the only printed, comprehensive, country-wide account of Catholic registers, and records in detail the period covered by each set of registers, including gaps, up to 1880.

Fully comprehensive listings of the dates and locations of all known copies of Church records, cross-linked to the areas they cover, can be found through the Ancestor Search or the Subscription section.