Enhanced search across 2,972,451 records
The National Archives of Ireland provides an official search interface for the 1926 Census. This tool — 1926census.ie — accesses the same data with significantly more filters, name matching features, and export options. Here's what the difference looks like in practice.
Free to use, no account required.
Open the Extended Search →| Feature | 1926census.ie | Official NA Search |
|---|---|---|
| Search by name | ✓ Surname + first name, exact or contains | Partial — name only |
| Filter by county | ✓ All 26 counties | ✓ |
| Filter by townland / street | ✓ Partial match with autocomplete | ✗ |
| Filter by District Electoral Division | ✓ Partial match with autocomplete | ✗ |
| Filter by age range | ✓ Min and max age | ✗ |
| Filter by sex | ✓ | ✗ |
| Filter by religion | ✓ | ✗ |
| Filter by Irish language ability | ✓ | ✗ |
| Filter by marital status | ✓ | ✗ |
| Filter by birthplace county / country | ✓ | ✗ |
| Filter by occupation | ✓ Partial text match | ✗ |
| Name spelling variants | ✓ 110 surname clusters, 40 first name clusters | ✗ |
| Phonetic fallback on zero results | ✓ Metaphone-based suggestions | ✗ |
| Autocomplete on surname, townland, DED | ✓ | ✗ |
| Sort results | ✓ By name, age, county | ✗ |
| Export to CSV | ✓ Up to 1,000 records | ✗ |
| Shareable deep-linked URLs | ✓ All filters in URL | ✗ |
| Link to original census form | ✓ Links to NA PDF viewer | ✓ |
| Relationship to household head | ✓ Shown in record detail | ✗ |
| Works on mobile | ✓ Full-screen filter panel | Partial |
Filter by birthplace to find immigrants from England, Scotland, the United States, or other countries living in Ireland in 1926. The official search has no birthplace filter.
Search for US-born residents →Filter by Irish language ability to find Irish-only or bilingual speakers. Combine with a county to see language distribution within specific areas.
Irish-only speakers in Kerry →Filter by religion to find Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Methodist, Jewish, or Quaker households — which were a small minority outside Ulster and Dublin.
Jewish residents in 1926 →Search for a specific townland or street across all counties, or combined with a county. The autocomplete shows the 20 most common matching townland names with record counts.
Main Street residents across Ireland →Search by occupation keyword — "teacher", "labourer", "servant", "farmer" — to analyse how a particular occupation was distributed across counties and townlands.
Teachers in the 1926 Census →Filter for a surname, county, and age range that matches a known family, then export the results as CSV for use in genealogy software or spreadsheets.
Try a filtered search →One of the most practical differences is name variant handling. When you type "Murphy" into the search, chips appear showing Morphy, Murphey, and Murfy — all recorded spellings of the same surname in 1926. Click one to switch your search to that spelling.
This matters because the official search is exact — if your ancestor's name was recorded as "Morphy", a search for "Murphy" won't find them. This tool surfaces the alternatives automatically, without requiring you to already know them.
See the full name variants guide for a complete reference of surname and first name clusters.
Every filter combination has a unique URL. Searching for Murphy in Cork produces a URL like /?surname=Murphy&county=Cork. Copy it to share a specific search with a researcher, link from a blog post, or bookmark for later.
You can also link directly to a specific record — clicking a name in results opens a detail panel, and the record ID is added to the URL. Share that URL and the recipient will see the same record detail when they open it.
1926census.ie is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Archives of Ireland. It accesses the same underlying data via the National Archives' public API, which is the same data source as the official search.
All records link back to the original source on nationalarchives.ie. The tool adds no data and changes no records — it only provides a more capable search interface over the same dataset.
The 1926 census data is historical and frozen — it will not change. All searches are cached aggressively, so the tool is fast even for complex queries.
Search 2,972,451 records with full filter access — free, no account needed.
Open the Extended Search →