Counties of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is made up of 32 counties, with 26 in the Republic of Ireland and 6 in Northern Ireland.

List of counties
Note: * - The old County Dublin has now been replaced by three new counties: (i) Contae Átha Cliath Theas / County of South Dublin; (ii) Contae Fine Gall / County of Fingal; (iii) Contae Dún Laoghaire–Ráth an Dúin / County of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

Jurisdictions
Other jurisdictions of interest for family history research include:


 * Townlands -- small geographical areas that mostly serve as addresses but have also been used as a division for record organization.
 * Parishes -- civil government parishes and church parishes in both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church. Civil parishes and Church of Ireland parishes boundaries closely correspond. Roman Catholic parishes tend to be larger.
 * Baronies -- ancient districts which were used as divisions for record organization into the late 19th century.
 * Poor Law Unions -- created by the New Poor Law Act of 1838 to facilitate the care of the poor; later subdivided into districts for civil registration and into district electoral divisions for census, taxation and voting purposes.