|
CIGO has long campaigned for the opening of post-1922 Irish census records
after only seventy-five years has elapsed rather than the current tariff
of one hundred years. In particular we have campaigned that at the very
least the 1926 census should be opened to public scrutiny, for two principal
reasons:
- A very large percentage of the people enumerated would have been
born before civil registration began in Ireland in 1864.
- The data pertaining
to each person so enumerated is little different to that recorded in
the 1911 census returns and is not dissimilar to information already
in the public domain in the form of civil registration records, voters
registers and land records.
Public access to the 1901 and 1911 Irish census returns was established
as early as 1961 by decision of Charles Haughey TD, parliamentary secretary
to the Minister for Justice, Oscar Traynor TD. For most of 1961 Traynor
had suffered severe ill health and Haughey was de facto Minister
until his official appointment in October of that year. The 1901 and
1911 census returns had been transferred on a temporary basis to the
Public Record Office in the mid-1930s and there they had subsequently
languished. They were officially transferred to the Record Office by
means of a warrant issued under section 13 of the Public Records
(Ireland) Act 1867 in May 1961. It is important to remember that
at the time this decision was made only fifty years had elapsed since
the 1911 census returns had been compiled. The received history about
this is that it was done to help mitigate the loss of Ireland’s
19th century census records. Those for the 1821, 1831, 1841 & 1851
censuses were destroyed when the Public Record Office of Ireland was
consumed by fire in June 1922 during the height of the civil war. The
returns for the 1861, 1871, 1881 & 1891 censuses were routinely destroyed
through a bureaucratic muddle that saw civil servants in London advising
their counterparts in Dublin that original census household schedules
should be destroyed. The problem with this advice was that it was given
without having first established that while in Great Britain the data
in these schedules had been copied into census enumerators books for
future preservation, no such system existed in Ireland.
There was to have been a census undertaken in Ireland
in 1921, but that plan was abandoned because of the civil war. The first
census to be undertaken in the Irish Free State was legislated for in
the Statistics Act 1926, and the enumeration was conducted in
the same year. The construction of the wording of section 13 (1) of the
Act precluded the authorities from releasing the household returns for
public inspection. This was remedied with the passing of the Statistics
Act 1993, when it was established that once one hundred years had elapsed
census returns could be opened to researchers. At the time the Act (then
a Bill) was progressing through its parliamentary stages CIGO and the
Dun Laoghaire Genealogical Society (now the Genealogical Society of Ireland)
led a successful campaign to amend the Bill to release census material
after the elapse of only seventy-five years. Unfortunately, at a later
stage in the process this amendment was reconsidered and at this time
all post-1922 Irish census records remain subject to the ‘one hundred
year rule’.
CIGO is not alone in regretting that the State’s access policy
to census records does not follow the US model, which releases records
after seventy years rather than one hundred. This approach appears to
work well and is generally accepted by US citizens. All surviving US
censuses, complete with full names indexes, are now available on the
Internet up to that compiled in 1930.
Recently the Genealogy and Heraldry Bill 2006 proceeded to
its second stage in the Seanad [Senate]. This Bill came about through
the work of the Genealogical Society of Ireland. Although in the course
of the ensuing debate the Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism, John
O’Donoghue TD made it clear that he was “unconvinced
of the need for this Bill” he offered to submit the issues
raised by it for consideration by the Board of the National Library of
Ireland if the Bill’s sponsor, opposition Labour Senator Brendan
Ryan, would withdraw it. Amongst its various provisions, the Genealogy
and Heraldry Bill allowed for the opening of the 1926 (and specifically
only the 1926 census) after the passing of only seventy-five years. This
call was in line with CIGO policy in this area and CIGO supported this
aspect of the Bill.
Interestingly, in December 2006 the UK’s Information Commissioner
found in favour of a complainant who had been refused access to information
from the 1911 census of England and Wales (which remains subject the ‘one
hundred year rule’) by the UK’s National Archives. The Commissioner
found that although at the time the census was compiled an undertaking
was given to treat information supplied as confidential, much of the
information recorded in the 1911 census could not “normally
be of such sensitivity as to give rise to an expectation of privacy”.
While of course Ireland operates under its own Freedom of Information
Act, the finding of the UK’s Information Commissioner in this instance
should give the Irish authorities pause for thought.
The issue of access to the 1926 census
is high on CIGO’s list of long-term objectives, particularly as
2006 marks the eightieth anniversary of its compilation. We will continue
to lobby for its early release.
SIGN THE PETITION
TO OPEN THE 1926 CENSUS HERE
Back to Top
|