Hi Kerry, A book I came across which may be of interest is as follows: "Ireland Since 1800: conflict and conformity" by K. Theodore Hoppen published by Longman, London and New York, copyright 1989, ISBN 0-582-03938-X. It doesn't deal specifically with County Clare, but as I remember (it's a while since I read it), it does deal with several of the areas you mention. It has a bibliography and index and some statistical data is in table form. The first section deals with the period from Union to the Famine, the second from the Famine to partition and the last from partition onwards. Each section is divided into three parts looking at politics, society and religion. > Did the other political subdivisions, e.g. Baronies, Unions and District Electoral Divisions, have any significance or impact on their lives. For administrative purposes yes, they would have been relevant. Your Registrar's District determined where you registered your birth, death and marriages after 1864. From the 1830s onwards, the Poor Law Unions determined which workhouse you ended up in if you couldn't support yourself and from a landlord's perspective, it determined which union board you might have sat on as a Guardian and where your taxes went. This site might be of interest for more details on the Poor Law: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/UnionsIreland.html Your Church of Ireland parish would have determined where your tithe payments went and for most of course, the RC parish determined where you attended Mass. > What was the appropriate age for men to marry and for women to marry? In the case of my own families, I have found that often the men were older (30-40+ years) when they married, having waited to inherit if they were the eldest, whereas their wives were in their 20s. Cheers, Jo Mitchell Geelong, Australia