ONE hundred years ago, on April 18 1926, censuses were taken across the island of Ireland.

Although they were the first since partition, and were taken by the then two different political jurisdictions on the island, they still took place on the same day.

The full comprehensive details from the Irish Free State census have been accessible online since last weekend, although the full returns for Northern Ireland from 1926 have disappeared, presumably destroyed during the Second World War.

For modern Irish historians like me, the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses have been a key component of most projects I engage in.

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For people looking into their family histories, they have been an invaluable tool since being released online, with the digitisation project completed by the summer of 2010.

And unlike with UK census returns, for example, the all-island Irish ones for 1901 and 1911 are fully accessible free of charge, paid for by the Irish state, as is the latest 1926 census.

The 1926 census is a very important one, the first conducted in post-partition Ireland.

There was a gap of 15 years from 1911, the last one conducted on an all-island basis.

The intervening period saw seismic changes to Ireland politically and socially, which included the First World War, the 1916 Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Irish Civil War and, of course, partition.

The headline figures relating to population and religion have been known for some time,........

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