SNIPPET: FYI -- Per www.pensear.org: "We provide something in the nature of an Irish census 1841 and 1851 substitute. The reason for this is simple. Ireland's Old Age Pension Act was introduced in 1908, entitling anyone over a certain age to a state pension. Pension claimants had to prove their age - but because the compulsory registration of births had begun only in 1864 they had no birth certificates as proof. The government therefore searched the 1841 and 1851 census returns to find their age at that time. That is, you get to see some of the information collected in 1908 from the 1841 and 1851 censuses, now themselves gone."