Fascinating facts from our past

There has been widespread interest across the whole island in the 1926 census for Ireland’s 26 counties, which was recently released online, free of charge, by the National Archives of Ireland. Damien Burke, archivist for the Irish Jesuit Province, is one of many perusing the website ».

In this interview with Pat Coyle of Irish Jesuit Communication, he explains the interest in the topic and discusses what happened to the census conducted in the north of the country the very same night, which apparently no longer exists.

He also outlines what people can expect to find online and contextualises what was happening in Ireland at the time the census was recorded.

Turning to the Jesuit Order, Damien gives an overview of the Jesuits in that year and what we can learn about the work they were engaged in throughout the country. He discusses education at the time in general before looking specifically at Jesuit schools and colleges. And he explains the Jesuit influence on the new educational curricula in Ireland, as evidenced in the census, before concluding with an overview of the learnings from this unique historical record.