WHAT are we if not our stories pondered Enda Walsh in his 2006 play The Walworth Farce that features Dinny exiled with his two sons Blake and Sean from his native Cork City.

By Peadar King

I thought of that question at a recent seminar in UCC on the 1926 Census. What are we if not our stories?

On that day, story after story poured out all inspired by the 1926 census. 

Among the stories told was a heartbreaking account of the death of John Joseph Gilmore.

He was recorded in the 1926 Census as an eight-year-old but in the following column he was also recorded as ‘dead’.

Puzzled, a descendant investigated.

He discovered that young John died at 18 months having fallen into a pot of boiling water.

Family lore had it that it took him ten hours to die. In registering him in the 1926 Census, it was as if his bereft parents were willing him to live and in a way he did. 

This is what the 1926 Census has done. Unearthed hidden and untold stories.

Skeletal stories that need flesh and blood. And apparently there is no end to our appetite for these stories.

A close up of one of the digitised documents from the 1926 census

Published on April 18th, on the 100th anniversary of the recording of the Census, there were 20 million hits to its website in the first weekend alone.

Ten days later that had climbed to 37.5 million based on 1.8m unique visitors, 81.6% of which originated from Ireland, 9% from the Great Britain and 3% from the USA. 

All generating tens if not hundreds of thousands if not indeed millions of conversation across this country and beyond. 

‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,’ wrote  LP Hartley in his quintessential 1953 English novel The Go-Between.

And at one level, the 1926 Census is that past country. People lived shorter lives.

Most lived in rural areas (61%) and off the land. Now the reverse is the case – 64% live in urban areas. 

Life expectancy at birth for women was 58 years (currently 84) and 57 years for men (currently 81).

And yet…

People did then what we now do today.

Perhaps a little differently. But ultimately not that much differently.

We share a common humanity. We are born. We die.

In between, we live our best possible lives. The past isn’t an altogether different country.

Then and now, babies were born – 61,176 (29,794 girls and 31,382 boys) the previous year. 

Most children went to school.

The School Attendance Act was passed that year but the state institutions obligated to ensure children went to school were very often viewed with deep suspicion particularly by the poor and members of the Travelling community. 

Adults who could went to work but women’s work was under represented, many reduced to the status of ‘home duties’.

 Most people (92.6%) identified as Catholic.

Between 1911 and 1926, the non-Catholic population declined by 32% but those that remained accounted for a high share of employers (17%), managers and professionals (18.4%), chartered accountants (46%) and barristers (39%).

The number of Irish speakers was on the up - 18.3% in 1926, but Irish as a spoken language was in retreat in Gaeltacht areas. 

And there’s more. Lots more. 

Censuses are not about the past.

They are essential building blocks to the future and in that respect the 1926 Census was no different.

The year before the 1926 Census was gathered, the Local Government Act was enacted.

The census allowed national and local government to react to the needs of its citizens while planning for their future, all the while revealing tantalizing tales for us future citizens. 

Stories and collective stories. The collective stories of 1926 begin with individual stories.

Here’s one from West Cork. Brendan McCarthy is an elected county councilor and school principal at Union Hall Primary School.

Cllr Brendan McCarthy researching his family history via the online resource

On a warm summer evening we traced his family. 

On the night of April 18th 1926, Brendan’s grandfather, William McCarthy wasn’t at home.

Most likely he was overseas with the Merchant Navy.

His grandmother, Eileen McCarthy, aged 25, a Roman Catholic (RC) who spoke Irish & English (I&E) and whose occupation was listed as Home Duties (HD) was recorded as present with her birth family, the Kirbys, at Clontaff, Union Hall.

The family rented their home from the Fullers, a local merchant family at the time. 

At home with her on the night were her two sisters – Daisy (22) and Elizabeth (33).

Both were single and RC, and and both were recorded as ‘not occupied for a living’.

Their mother Mary (64, RC) was widowed. Her occupation was listed as Home Duties. 

Brendan’s mother Eithne Harnedy grew up in Aghills in the DED of Shreelane.

On the night of the 1926 Census, Eithne’s father Ted aged 20, RC, Single, I&E, was recorded as assisting on father’s farm (and not his parents’ farm).

He lived with both his parents, an older sister and a younger brother. 

His mother, Ellen aged 54, RC, married, and her occupation was recorded as Home Duties.  No reference was made to her linguistic abilities. 

Ted’s father John aged 55, RC, married. He is recorded as having Irish & English. His occupation was that of a farmer.

Ted’s sister Mary Kate aged 21, RC, single, spoke I&E (Irish and English), registered as HD and his brother Richard aged 16, RC, Single, I&E was recorded as assisting on father’s farm. 

The farm size was 35 acres on which five people depended. 

Maybe because we live in such time of death.

Maybe it’s the daily toll of children’s death all over the world but all the while, John Joseph Gilmore’s story lingers.

His story and the grief of his parents. A story that reminded me of another story from the past, from another place, another story of grief and loss and a story of shared humanity.

The dead are never really dead. Our ancestors live on. The 1926 Census is proof of that as is this.

Funded under the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.

1926 census was 'extraordinary'

ARGUABLY, a police force in reserve, the 14,145 ‘professed clergymen and nuns’ outnumbered the 13,869 non-commissioned members of the recently reduced Óglaigh na hÉireann (Irish army), four-and-a-half years following the foundation of the state.

Just one of the multitudes of interesting insights from the 1926 census data that has millions of people - 20 million in the first weekend alone - clicking since the site was launched on 18 April of this year.

Ten days later that had climbed to 37.5 million.

The compilation of the data was an extraordinary achievement.

The newly established fragile Saorstát Éireann following centuries (take your pick) of British colonisation; the creaking weight of a bitterly fought civil war, precarious state finances, some still recalcitrant citizens many of whom deeply suspicious of the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal-led government, and what many regarded as a partisan police force all might have conspired against the census taking place. 

And yet. 

Some 2,000 members of An Garda Síochána distributed and collected bilingual Irish and English census forms to 562,633 households, prisons, hospitals, “lunatic asylums” and hotels. It was some task, mostly done on foot and on bicycle as there were few motor vehicles in the country at the time. 

On the night of 18 April 1926, the lives of nearly three million people (2.97), were recorded for posterity. 

Now you too can join in the great on-line search and follow the story of your family, community, county and country. To do so click on Search the Census 1926.

1920s West Cork and a past that refused to remain in the past

The Great Famine (1845-1952) still cast a long shadow.

The Skibbereen and Bantry Unions, two of the poorest in the country, suffered enormously during and following An Gorta Mór.

The population of West Cork, decimated: Moyross, by 55%, Drinagh and Kilmacabea, 52%.  Drimoleague, 43%. Aughadown, 42%, Castlehaven 40% and Caheragh by 38%. 

The rural poor laid waste.  A land haemorrhaging its people. 

British colonialism cast another shadow. Land evictions and their legacy.

In a 1928 Dáil debate, West Cork TD Thomas Mullins recalled the 1852 evictions from the Inchedoney Island Hungerford estate. ‘We were led to expect when this Government came into power that the claims of these wounded soldiers of the land war would receive first consideration; that justice would be done to those citizens.’

The 1923 Land Commission was to finally do that justice. On land reform it succeeded – partially at least.

A funeral in Skibbereen during the Great Famine, as depicted in The Illustrated London News at the time.

It did little, however, to assuage the harsh living conditions in 1920s rural Ireland. 

Nationwide, half (51%) the population depended on agriculture for their survival, but the 1923-24 harvests were disastrous.

Unrelenting rainfall.  Potatoes – still the main food of the rural poor – rotted in the ground. Hungry animals died.  Sodden turf refused to light. 

The ghosts of past famines.

Local historian Philip O’Regan: ‘By the mid-1920s many people were reduced to hunger. In one terrible tragedy in 1927, a family of four in Adrigole died from hunger.’

A newborn nation struggling to find its way.