Ireland�s Tax Records

With civil registration for all of Ireland not starting until 1864 (only Protestant marriages were recorded for 1845) researching famine-era immigrants can be a frustrating task. However, the tax lists have become a sort of census substitute. These are also considered a land record, and when used together they can help narrow an area for an Irish ancestor.

  • Griffith's Valuation, carried out for taxation purposes, was published between 1847 and 1864. It records the names of occupiers and description of property held.
  • Tithe Applotment records were compiled between 1823 and 1837. Valuations were carried out across the whole country in order to establish how much each landholder should pay to the Established Church i.e. the Church of Ireland.
  • Cancelled Land Books record the changes in tenancy/ownership of property from the time of Griffith's Valuation.

Grittith's Valuation is a tax list, not a census. The name of the occupier is the person responsible for paying the tax on the tenement (land and buildings). It is, however, the only major surviving list of where people lived just prior to and just after the famine. Even if your ancestors emigrated before the Valuation, chances are that members of their family remained and are listed. Once identified, the history of the tenancy and/or ownership of the parcel can be traced, in some cases, to the 1970's.

The Tithe Applotment which covers the time period of 1823-1837 can also help to narrow the surname to a specific area of research. The Tithe was a tax paid to support the church of Ireland (Anglican) and was not a popular tax among the Roman Catholic tenant farmers. The refusal to pay this tax culminated in the "tithe wars" lists of inclusion of the tax into rents paid to the landlords. The Tithe Apploment (listing taxes due) and the Tithe Defaulters List may provide information on your family.

"Cess" (a country level tax imposed to support the civil functions, such as the grand jury, road maintenance, poor, etc) was unpopular among both the landlords and the tenants. 1825 Richard Griffith was named as a Boundary Surveyor to again the process of defining boundaries for the town lands. In conjunction, Ordnance Survey teams under the direction of Thomas Colby created detailed maps of Ireland (on a scale of 6 inches to one statute mile). One additional requirement was the standardization of names of the town lands. John O'Donovan, an Irish Scholar was employed to create a "Name Book".

  • Occupiers and their immediate landlord
  • Ordnance survey map designation of holding
  • Description of holding
  • Tax on land, buildings and total tax

In the early 1960's the National Library of Ireland created a list of surnames form the Valuation and Tithe listed first by country, then Barony, then civil parish. If you had the surnames of two individual who married in Ireland, it might by possible to cross reference the information to determine a limited number of parishes where both names occurred. John Grenham has created an aid in his volume (Grenham's Irish Surnames).

From the end of Griffith's Valuation (1864) until the mid to latter part of the 20th century annual valuations of the land were conducted and the charges were marked on books referred to as the Cancellation or Revision Books. When a charge occurred, it was noted in a different color of ink. When a charge occurred it is a clue to look for some type of event… possible a death or emigration. If the property stayed within the some surname, you will by led to civil registration, the 1901 and 1911 censuses or possibly the Registry of Deeds as tenants were able to purchase their property in the early part of the 20th century.

Websites of Interest


previous page next page