Brilliant news for anyone interested in researching their Irish family roots. The entire collection of Catholic parish register microfilms held by the National Library of Ireland is now available online – for free. A dedicated website has gone live today, with over 390,000 digital images of the microfilm reels on which the parish registers are recorded. The parish register records are considered the single most important source of information on Irish family history prior to the 1901 Census. Dating from the 1740s to the 1880s, they cover 1,091 parishes throughout the island of Ireland, and consist primarily of baptismal and marriage records. You can find the new website here: Catholic Parish Registers
