The Irish Army Census was a snapshot of the National (Free State) Army taken at midnight on 12/13 November, 1922, during the guerrilla phase of the Irish Civil War. The census records details of more than 33,000 soldiers stationed in the various barracks and posts which were occupied by the Free Staters. This information was gathered into 10 bound volumes which were, until recently, only accessible by visiting the Irish military archives. On 13 November, 2012, the digitised pages of these volumes were released on the military archives website to mark the 90th anniversary of the census, but at that stage it was only possible to search by barracks location and not by the name of an individual soldier - unless you knew where a particular soldier was stationed you would be obliged to browse through many hundreds of pages before finding him.

Within the last week, however, the final phase of the digitisation project has been completed and it is now possible to search by an individual's first name and/or surname, as well as location. The census is a valuable resource for family historians because not only does it provide fascinating information about each soldier such as their regimental number, rank, age, date and place of attestation, religion, marital status, but also provides details of their next-of-kin and home address.

The Irish Army Census Records can be searched at the following:

http://www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/online-collections/milit...

Kieron