County Dublin, Ireland Genealogy

Ireland County Dublin

Dublin is located on the east coast of Ireland along the Irish Sea and contains the largest city in Ireland, which is the capital of the Republic of Ireland. It is part of the province of Leistner and is divided into four government administrative areas; Dublin City, Dun Laoghaire – Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. Its name comes from the Irish word Dubh Linn meaning black pool. The county covers 1,869.9 square miles (4,843.2 sq km). Its length is 32 miles from the Kippure Mountain on the south to the River Delvin near Balbriggan. Its breadth is 18 miles from Clonee near Lucan to Howth Head.

In the eighth century, the Vikings establish a settlement here, which developed into an important Viking base. The Irish took over a portion of the area in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf. In 1169, Dublin became the center of the Norman’s activities in Ireland. By 1644, the English controlled most of the country and the population of Dublin was about 60,000. Dublin continued to grow with the arrival of English administrators as well as people from all over Ireland. Huguenot, Jewish and other groups also came to Dublin.

The population was 335,892 in 1821 and grew to 372,773 in 1841. Contrary to the population of most counties, County Dublin’s population increased following the potato famine to 405,147 in 1851. The population generally continued to increase until it was 505,654 in 1926. In 2006, the population was 582,557. The predominant religion in the county is Roman Catholic. In 1891, 77.0% of the population was Roman Catholic followed by the Church of Ireland at 18.6% with 1.8% and 1.0% being Presbyterian and Methodists, respectively. Overtime, the percentage of Roman Catholics increased to 95.8% in 1926 and the Church of Ireland also decreased to 10.6% with 1.3% and 0.8% being Presbyterian and Methodist. In 2006, the percentages were 81.4%, 3.0%, 0.5%, 0.4% for Roman Catholics, Presbyterians and Methodists with 12.2% reporting as being another religion or having no religion.

General County Research Information
Further information about County Dublin is available at the GenUKI site.

Civil Jurisdictions and Parish Research Information
A map of the Civil Parishes of County Dublin is available at Irish Times site.