1926 Census Exhibition

St. Peters Cork, North Main Street

The Census 1926 Exhibition at St Peters

To celebrate the public release of the 1926 Census, the National Archives and Department of Culture, Communications and Sport announced a wide-ranging public engagement programme, which includes a book, The Story Of Us - Independent Ireland and the 1926 Census (Irish Academic Press), theatre production, The Good Luck Club (ANU Productions) and landmark RTÉ documentary, which will air in May.

The programme also includes major exhibitions running at Dublin Castle, as well as in London and Boston. The exhibition explores the world reflected in the census to reveal what life was like in the newly independent Ireland of 1926: in towns, cities, the countryside and the islands, from urban tenements to the mansions of the aristocracy. The Story of Us uses contemporary documents and images, audio-visual displays and the census returns themselves to present a picture of life in 1926: from sport and entertainment to language, culture, religion, gender and the working lives of the inhabitants of the Irish Free State a century ago.

The exhibition will also tour Ireland in 2026, in partnership with local authorities around the country, and the National Archives have today announced the full schedule for the exhibition, which takes in ten counties as well as the National Ploughing Championships.

The exhibition will be on display in St Peters from 7 - 27 July