Ireland Occupations

Knowing your ancestor's occupation may help you distinguish him or her from other individuals with the same name. Moreover, records associated with your ancestor's occupation may provide information about your ancestor's life and family. Some Irish occupational sources include:


 * Records of freemen (businessmen who had special privileges, such as the right to vote), which are useful because they may list age, birthplace, parentage, and occupation.


 * Service records of the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C the national police force), which provide each constable's name, age when appointed, native county, religion, physical description, and employment history. If a constable was married, information about his wife and children may also be included. The records are indexed and list several thousand men employed by the constabulary from 1816 to 1922. The Dublin Metropolitan Police (D.M.P) covered the city area, and records for this force include similar details to those for the R.I.C. but also show the civil parish of birth for each constable.


 * Alumni and member biographical sketches, which are often published by Irish, English, and Scottish schools and universities that train people for professional occupations (such as medicine, law, and theology). For more information on these sources, see Ireland Schools.


 * Military records, which contain information about Irish who pursued careers in the armed services. For more information on these records, see Ireland Military Records.
 * De Breffny, Brian. Employees of the Irish Revenue in 1709. List of persons in the employ of the Revenue Service in Ireland 1709, extracted from a payroll of Irish Revenue (found in the Mss Dept of the British Museum.) A number of englishmen actually came to Ireland in the Revenue Service and settled in Ireland.  Artic in The Irish Ancestor, vol. V. no.2.1973, pages 6-16. Family History Library Ref. 941.5 B2i V5-6.
 * Collectors of Revenue in Ireland, Michaelmas 1678. The list was extracted from British Museum, Add. Mss 15, 899, gives list of names and places. The Irish Ancestor, vol.VI.no.2.1974 page73-74, Family History Library Ref. 941.5 B2i v5-6.

For a listing of various occupations, the records about them, and the repositories where the records are kept, see:


 * Falley, Margaret Dickson. Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research. 2 vols. Evanston, Illinois: Margaret Dickson Falley, 1961-62. (Family History Library .)


 * Grenham, John. "Occupations." Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. 3rd ed. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 2006. (Family History Library .)


 * Hayes, Richard J. Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilization, the subject indexes. (Family History Library .)

For a definition of an occupation, see theOxford English Dictionary.

To locate Irish occupational sources available at the Family History Library, look in the Place Search of the catalog under the following headings:

IRELAND - OCCUPATIONS

IRELAND - OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES

IRELAND, [COUNTY] - OCCUPATIONS

Portrait of John Norton, Freeman of Dublin, Sherriff of Dublin 1791-92 - on front cover The Irish Ancestor. Vol. XV no.1, 1983 FHL Ref 941.5 B2i

IRELAND, [COUNTY], [TOWN or PARISH] - OCCUPATIONS

Because English guild records sometimes list Irish people, also look under ENGLAND, LONDON - OCCUPATIONS or request information from guild records held at the Guildhall Library:


 * Guildhall Library Aldermanbury London EC2P 2EJ ENGLAND Internet: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation