Irish Religious Censuses of the 1760s : Catholics and Protestants in eighteenth-century Ireland

This edition presents parish-level returns from the two national religious surveys conducted in Ireland during the 1760s — by the hearth-money collectors (1764–5) and the parish ministers of the Established Church (1766). Data are presented for over 1400 parishes, some including information on households. Every county in Ireland is represented in one or the other and most are in both.

Organised by administrative divisions and including colour distribution maps for each county, they provide a wealth of demographic and social information for mid eighteenth-century Ireland. The sources on which these data are based are scattered in large and small repositories across Ireland and this is the first time they have been brought together in one volume. The religious estimates for this period provide a link between the population data provided by the poll tax survey of 1660 and that of the 1831–4 report on religious numbers and religious observance.