Census of Ireland 1901 and 1911 and my family – part one

The other day the RTÉ website announced that the 1901 census of Ireland was now available to search online on the National Archives of Ireland website. The 1911 census was made available sometime last year and my dad had showed me the census form filled out by his maternal grandfather. The availability of the 1901 census made me repeat this but also for his paternal grandfather.

This post will deal with my father’s side of the family, who lived in Dublin. I will devote a future post to my mother’s side, who lived in Cork.

Census 1911 – Grandmother

I started by searching the 1911 census for my grandmother’s (who sadly died in June of last year at the age of 99) maiden name which was Carolan. I knew were they lived as my dad had told me. But I couldn’t find the record. Then my dad reminded me that my maternal great-grandfather was a devotee of the Irish language and therefore had changed their surname to the Irish version: O’Cearbhalláin (for men, for the women it is Ní Cearbhalláin). Amending my search revealed the correct census form which my great-grandfather (Seán O Cearbhalláin) had filled out in Irish, and in the Old Irish script.

[][6]

My final year project at university was to create an Old Irish font using Metafont so I am able to read it fairly well.

This did make me chuckle though, as it’s clearly supposed to be filled out in English (the enumerator translated the Religious Profession field into English and wrote it above the Irish words as you can see). My grandmother can be seen in the last line, Áine Ní Cearbhalláin (Anne Carolan), daughter (ingean – which is Old Irish, modern Irish is íníon), aged 1.

Census 1911 – Grandfather

Naturally I performed a similar search for my grandfather’s family. They, as we do now, used the English version of our surname, Devlin (incidentally the Irish version is O’Doibhlin for a male and Ní Doibhlin for a female), and a quick search for Laurence Devlin, my grandfather (who died in 1992), in Dublin, revealed only one result.

[][9]

This form, as you can see, was filled out in English by my great-grandfather, John Joseph Devlin, and therefore much easier to read. At the time of the census, my grandfather was only 4 months old, and naturally couldn’t read or write!

It’s interesting to note that they had a servant and cook, Kathleen Dalton, aged 16, living in the house, so they can’t have being doing too badly for themselves!

Census 1901 – Great Grandfathers

Taking the information found above, I then made a search for both my maternal and paternal great-grandfathers, Seán O Cearbhalláin and John Joseph Devlin, respectively.

I know that it was my maternal great-grandfather who changed their surname the Irish version, so when searching for him I would have to use his English name, John Carolan. Searching for this name in Dublin alone returned a number of John Carolans, but I knew from the 1911 census form that he would have been around 24 at the time of the 1901 census.

There are two John Carolans aged 23, one living in Finglas which is at the North West of Dublin and the other is in Rathmines and Rathgar East which is much closer to where he ended up living when he was married. The one in Finglas was an agricultural labourer whilst the other was a picture frame maker and spoke both English and Irish, so I can tell that this is my maternal great-grandfather, John Carolan.

[][11]

Once again this household had a servant, and my great-great-grandmother was a widow at this time, and she ran a store. What happened to my great-great-grandfather I don’t know. I must ask my dad if he does, sadly, as mentioned above, my grandparents have passed away.

Once again my paternal great-grandfather proves much easier to locate, there only being one John-Joseph Devlin in Dublin recorded in the census.

[][13]

As you can see he was a French Polisher, but bizarrely he and two other males in the household are indicated as grand-sons. I’m not sure what’s going on there, and again some questions to ask my dad!

My great-great-grandfather, John Devlin, has also lost his partner. Again what became of her is at the moment unknown to me.

Notes

I’ll update this post with further information when I come by it. Part two will feature my mother’s side of the family. Alas both her parents have also passed away, a long time ago, and I never knew them.