Irish death records

Unfortunately, the death certificates of our Irish ancestors provide relatively little of value compared with the genealogical treasures of birth and marriage documents. Surprisingly, it was not until 2005 that the authorities decided it was time to start adding important details such as parents' names to ensure the deceased could be identified from another with the same name! See Details recorded in an Irish death register below.

Prior to this, Irish death records show no date of birth for the deceased and no familial connections except in those cases where the person reporting the death was a relative.

This is the death certificate of my gt gt grandfather, George Francis Nichols, who died on 18 January 1920 at his home in Wicklow. He was a widower and was recorded as aged 75. If correct, this would mean he'd been born in 1845.

His son, James, who was present at the death and reported it, would have given this age as a guess because George himself seems to have been undecided exactly when he was born. In the 1901 census he had calculated his age from a birth year of 1846 but in 1911 he decided it should have been 1844.

George died from cardiac failure. As there is no 'duration' stated on the certificate, it would appear he suffered from a heart attack. However, there was no post-mortum so his heart condition had probably already been diagnosed. His son, James, who lived in Wicklow, reported his passing six days after the death, which was duly registered by Assistant Registrar Ida Halpin, in the Registrar's District of Wicklow in the Poor Law Union of Rathdrum, County Wicklow.

The Wicklow People reported news of his death and funeral, confirming some of the assumptions made from his death certificate were correct. He died while his daughter was preparing dinner, hitting his head on a chest of drawers as he fell to the ground. However, the report says nothing of any illness, instead suggesting he was in reasonable health and fitness for a man of his years.

Just a matter of a few days before George Nichol's death, his brother-in-law James Doolittle passed away at Wicklow Infirmary. James was an unmarried seafarer from Wicklow. Like his father and some of his brothers, he had been a member of the Wicklow Harbour Board.

Born in 1856, he died on 11 January 1912 having suffered from Tubercular disease of the Intestines for ten months and Asthema for his final month. One L Murphy, a nurse who was present at his death, registered his demise the following day. 

Mary Santry, the widow of a labourer, died in County Cork on 10 July 1875. Having survived the famine, she nonetheless ended up in the workhouse 30 years later. Her death was registered by the Chief Resident Officer of Clonakilty's Union Workhouse just under a month later (and just in time to avoid a fine for late registration).

The stated cause of death, 'Senile Decay', is common for the elderly and is assumed to mean a general decline in health for an undiagnosed condition.

One of the great values of Irish death records is that they contain details of people who, like Mary Santry, do not appear in any other sources. Even allowing for an exaggerated age, Mary was probably born at the end of the 18th century and is likely to have wed long before civil registration started. Her birth and marriage pre-date most church records, too. It is highly likely this register entry is the only written proof of her time on earth.