Counting Cats - only remaining record of 1831 Census found in Kilkenny!

An international search for records to recreate those lost in the burning of the Customs House, in 1921, has turned up a rare gem - in County Kilkenny!

The 1831 census was the third statutory census organised in Ireland. It was also the most accurate of the four pre-Famine censuses. It is ironic, therefore, that the 1831 census is the only pre-Famine census which was destroyed completely in the Public Record Office fire in 1922.

During the course of the “Beyond 2022” project it was discovered that an 1831 census item existed, in private custody, in Inistioge.

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An examination of the item quickly revealed its significance. Although the item is not an original 1831 census return, it was transcribed from the original census returns in 1831, before the census returns were submitted to the Census Office in Dublin, and is perhaps the only original 1831 census notebook in existence. The census will prove of interest to the genealogist, the family historian, and the social and economic historian.

Now, a talk in the city will introduce the census, explain its significance, its contents, and consider what it tells us about Inistioge in the early 1830s.

The 1831 census and the Woodstock Estate, Inistioge, a lecture by Dr. Brian Gurrin, will take place at Rothe House, Kilkenny, on Wednesday 18th January, at 8pm. Admission €8 Members – €10 Non Members

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From the Kilmacow Notes

Dr Brian Gurrin is the census specialist on the Beyond 2022 project, which launched the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland in June 2022. He has written extensively on census taking in Ireland, and is particularly interested in the demographics of Irelands regions in the pre-Famine period. His joint authored (with Kerby Miller and Liam Kennedy) volume, The Irish religious censuses of the 1760s, was published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission in 2022. His joint authored (with Liam Kennedy, Donald MacRaild and Lewis Darwen) volume, The Death Census of Black ’47: eyewitness accounts of Ireland’s Great Famine, will be published this month. He remains hopeful that more censuses like the 1831 census of Inistioge might yet be rediscovered.