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Note: * - The old County Dublin has now been replaced by three new counties: (i) Contae Átha Cliath Theas / County of South Dublin; (ii) Contae Fine Gall / County of Fingal; (iii) Contae Dún Laoghaire–Ráth an Dúin /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
Jurisdictions, arranged from the smallest first to the largest last, 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 parish and Church of Ireland parish boundaries closely correspond and share names. Roman Catholic parishes tend to be larger and have names that often do not match those of the civil parishes. Large cities can contain several parishes.
 * 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; each contains several civil parishes; later subdivided into districts for civil registration and into district electoral divisions for census, taxation and voting purposes.
 * County -- thirty-two in the whole of Ireland; each made up of several parishes and divided into jurisdictions for various purposes
 * Country -- the Republic of Ireland with twenty-six counties and Northern Ireland with six counties