About five minutes after you take an interest in Irish genealogy someone will tell you that all the records were lost in a fire. No they were not!! But oh yes loads and loads of great stuff was lost.
What's it all about? Where was the fire? Why the fire? What exactly was lost?
Let's see if we can help a little.
The loss to genealogy centres around the Four Courts Building in Dublin. This lovely domed building was built to house Ireland's legal system. Building began in 1776 and was not properly finished for around 30 years.
Then came The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.
This partioned Ireland with a border and created Northern Ireland within The United Kingdom, and the Irish Free State outside the UK.
During the next few years we had supporters and opponents of the Treaty in conflict with each other. The Four Courts Building was occupied and set on fire.
What records were lost in the fire?
- Census records for the years 1821, 1831, 1841, 1851. (NB other census records from 1861 - 1891 had already been pulped during World War 1).
- Wills. The vast majority of wills dating from before 1900 were lost. Thankfully, the Probate Office had kept their own copies since it began in 1858. So really only wills prior to 1858 are not available to research.
- Church of Ireland records. Not all of them but, as the established church, many of the older records of Church of Ireland parish records had been stored there and disappeared forever.
- Many important historic records dealing with the ancient history of Ireland
