Dear Wendy, Although legislation had been passed to enable a census to be undertaken in Ireland in 1921, because of the troubles at that time it was abandoned. In 1926, the Irish Free State Government undertook the first census of the new Irish State. In the early 1990s a new Statistics Act was passed by the House of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) which dealt with census returns made since the founding of the State. At this time the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) http://indigo.ie/~gorry/CIGO.html lobbied the government to allow census returns to be released in Ireland once 75 years had elapsed since such were created. Initially, CIGO was successful when the Bill was passing through the Seanad (Senate, the Upper House), unfortunately once in the Dáil (Lower and more important House) the date of release of census returns was set at 100 years. Every year or so CIGO raises this issue with the government in hopes that as so many of the people recorded in the 1926 census were born before civil registration began in Ireland, that the returns for that year might now be made available. Thus, currently the census returns for the 1926 census will not be made available until the 1st January 2027! For clarity, I should state that at the time of the Statistics Bill in question, the Dun Laoghaire Genealogical Society (now the Genealogical Society of Ireland) was a constituent member of CIGO and was one of the main groups in CIGO calling for the implementation of a 75 rather than a 100 year rule. I am sure that this is still one of their interests. Hope this helps. Steven Smyrl MAPGI "Wendy o. Grant" <georgepatrick@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message news:42f361f0$0$30086$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au... > >