Trade and Social Directories
The National Library has extensive holdings of Dublin, provincial and countrywide trade and social directories.
The earliest of the Dublin directories dates from 1751. Dublin directories, which expanded in scope over the years, continue in publication up to the present time.
While the earliest of the provincial directories - Ferrar's Directory of Limerick - dates from 1769, the nineteenth century saw the widespread publication of such directories. The nineteenth century also saw the publication of countrywide directories such as Pigot's Commercial Directory of Ireland (1820 and 1824) and Slater's Directories (1846, 1856, 1870, 1881 and 1894).
To find out if the Library holds a printed directory for the area relevant to your research, check the Online Catalogue.
Newspapers
The National Library has the largest newspaper collection in Ireland both local and national. Newspapers are useful to genealogical research as they contain advertisements and biographical notices (of birth, death or marriage). Unfortunately, as there are few indexes available, it is difficult to locate relevant family information.
As with the trade and social directories, newspaper information tends to be exclusive of the majority of the population: most births, marriages and deaths went unannounced and daily life continued without advertisement or report. Despite this newspapers are rich in context and provide a sense of the community and times in which particular ancestors lived.
For further information, please consult the Library's newspaper collection.
Miscellaneous Sources
Other sources in the National Library include many printed family histories, often compiled and published for private circulation by individuals who have researched their own family history. These can be located on the Online Catalogue. Typing the relevant family name as the title keyword search should produce details of any relevant publications held by the Library.
A select bibliography of titles relating to heraldry, Irish genealogy and family history, many of which are available in the main Reading Room, can be downloaded here:
Publications of local history societies from around the country often contain transcripts of local sources, including gravestone inscriptions, freeholders lists, etc.
Other relevant material in the Library’s collections includes the annual printed Army Lists, RIC Constabulary publications, the 1796 Spinning Wheel Premium Entitlement List. As research progresses, the appendices to nineteenth-century Parliamentary reports may prove useful.
You will, most likely, reach a stage in your research when it will be impossible to find direct family information from the available records. While this may be disheartening remember that your ancestors lived as part of a community and that to understand something more of their lives and circumstances it is always rewarding to research the history of their locality. There are a multitude of sources for local history research in the National Library.
These sources are set out in summary in the leaflet entitled Local Studies: Sources in the National Library of Ireland which can be downloaded here:
Local Studies : NLI Sources NLI_FamilyHistory_LocalStudies.pdf (0.05 MB, Adobe PDF)
Estate Records
The Department of Manuscripts in the National Library holds archives of many former landed estates. Estate archives contain the records of the administration of estates by landlords and their agents, and generally include leases, rentals, accounts, correspondence and maps. Please consult the Manuscripts Collections section for more information.