I pinched the screen of my smartphone to get a closer look at the information, and it occurred to me how big my small action was.

On the evening of 18 April 1926, as my great grandparents filled in their census form, they couldn’t possibly have imagined that their great grandchild would not be reading their entry on a piece of paper – but instead on a tiny screen that holds more information than a library. That their entry would be one of 700,000 households that had been digitally archived by the Government of the Irish State, a State that was still in its infancy at the time.

From pandemics to protests and wars, the headlines of the past decade have been unsettling but for those that filled in the 1926 census, they were just a few years out of a world war, plus a civil war and were feeling their way in a new Irish free state.

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As I considered this, I thought of my great-grandmother Julia Lombard, a woman that I never met but someone I had been told about over the years; an intelligent lady by all accounts, who used to write letters for people who didn’t possess those skills at the time.

Here’s what I didn’t know about her – when she filled in the census form in 1926, she was 41 years old, as was her husband John. My grandmother is the only child listed with an age of 1 year and 11 months, meaning Julia was 39 years old when she was born, not especially old for a mother to have a baby these days but quite unusual at that time. They married when they were 37 – again a mature marriage for the time – and the census lists that two children were born alive.

A call to my mother revealed that yes, their first baby had died. The information in the census may be sparse but for some entries like my great-grandmother Julia, it speaks volumes and reveals a back story that I never knew of – a couple marrying later in life, presumably a much-longed for baby, the heartbreak of his passing and how cherished my grandmother, and her brother that later arrived, must have been.

As it was first census since the formation of the Irish free state, entries were permitted in Irish, outlining how important and everyday the language was for my friend’s family

As many of us opened these records of families and farms over the weekend, we read between the lines about who those people were and the lives they lived. The little things made big statements.

A colleague of mine told me she went down a rabbit hole looking for a grandparent, only to find that (after quite a search) their entry had been made as Gaeilge.

As it was first census since the formation of the Irish free state, entries were permitted in Irish, outlining how important and everyday the language was for my friend’s family.

In the 15 years since the 1911 census (the 1921 one was cancelled), the land commission took place as did the land purchase scheme, so the listing of farmland acres has been monumental for many farmers, giving an insight into the land they still walk and farm everyday.

Of course, the small details have also opened up some big questions for families. Who was that farm labourer listed in the household on the night? Why was a family member listed in another county that evening? How was it never mentioned that we were a different religion?

But these are the details that our smartphones can never reveal. That is the beauty of history, we are given some of the facts and quite simply, we have to fill in those family gaps ourselves. The rest is unwritten.