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Come To Your Census - Season 1 Episode 1
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00:01In 1926, Ireland conducted its first census as an independent nation.
00:08One hundred years later, the National Archives have made that census freely available online across the world.
00:17For this series, six of us, including myself, Eileen Walsh, have been given the privilege of opening these books
00:26and to reflect on some of the lives captured in those records a century later.
01:00Before it is digitised and made available online, the 1926 census is stored in a room.
01:08Thirteen hundred boxes, documenting nearly three million names.
01:13The entire country, in one room. It's very odd.
01:18So this is Leitrim. So these are the L's. Kilkenny.
01:26And every single person who lived in the country at the time is written on a line in here somewhere.
01:34Every single person.
01:35This is the first time we would have filled out these forms as an Irish state.
01:44Most people in the country will have family on these pages that they would have known.
01:51And they would have loved and they would have, you know, had as part of their lives.
01:57Amongst these boxes, one of us wants to look inside the entries for Cork City.
02:03Mick Lynch is Britain's most recognisable trade union leader.
02:07Born in London to Irish parents, he credits his father for shaping his sense of social justice and fairness.
02:15I got a passion from my dad. He was always a bit of a fighter.
02:19He was very committed about what trade union is and what solidarity is.
02:24You know, I wouldn't like to let him down on that score, so that's why we kept going.
02:29I know you were only sort of 16 when your dad died, so you probably didn't, you know, get a
02:34chance to know much as an adult.
02:36But I was just wondering what you're hoping to sort of find out when you go back to Cork.
02:41I want to find out about Gunpowder Lane, which is quite an evocative place, the place he was born.
02:45I'm told it was very run down. It would probably be called slums now.
02:51And also, my dad was called Jackie Lynch, and there was another fellow from across the river, across the river
02:58Lee, called Jack Lynch, who became the Taoiseach.
03:01I want to see why their lives developed in different ways.
03:07They always used to refer to Ireland as home. They didn't say, you're going back to Cork, you're going back
03:11to Cross McGlynn.
03:12They say, are you going home? But we were London. It's quite a strange thing.
03:16I suppose we had more of a London Irish identity than a British identity, which is still true.
03:20They were very patriotic in the naive sense of just being very devoted to the country.
03:27But my mother also said Ireland never did anything for me.
03:31And my dad, as far as I can remember, never expressed any interest in going back to Ireland.
03:39Down this way is where I used to live, which is an area called the Warwick Estate, which we moved
03:44into in 1962.
03:48We were living in the flat just across the road there, in the lower one.
03:53There were seven of us in there, four of us in the bedroom, and my sister had her own one,
03:57and my mum and dad had their bedroom.
04:01So this was the back of the estate. When we were kids, this was all open.
04:04It's always smaller than you imagine.
04:07You know, when we were kids, this seemed like a great big playground for us.
04:13Irish people here had their own churches, their own schools, their own music, their own pubs and all the rest
04:18of it.
04:19So we were a distinct element in the working class, but we weren't a separate element of the working class,
04:24if you know what I mean.
04:25And I think that was one of the strengths of London and many British cities, that Irish people could come,
04:31you could get work, and you could live a life that maybe you couldn't live in Ireland.
04:36My dad liked the community. I think he was affable, I think he was fairly popular, but I never really
04:44knew him as a man, so I was always a child.
04:46For me, he's more of a myth, I suppose.
04:54Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach, went on to the highest office of the state and very high profile.
05:00While half a million people of my dad's generation, and half a million people of the next generation, every ten
05:05years, Ireland was sending most of its people abroad, or very many of its people abroad.
05:10It had to shed people, and they shed them all over the world, which is now called the diaspora.
05:16I don't even know what diaspora means, but apparently I'm part of it.
05:34I have a lot of people around the world on the island.
05:38Like, I have a lot of people beyond the land and mountainous birds with my passport.
05:45I'll never tell you where I WAS ON, I have a lot of people beyond the world and I have
05:48a lot of people beyond the world of my dad's world, but it's better for them.
05:48When the man is needing to be the only one who is on the planet, I have a lot of
05:49people beyond the planet.
05:49Because we're not alone for this place, which is the place.
05:49As well as I want, my dad's big family for my dad's generation, I'll be able to record.
05:49It's been a long time for a long time.
05:53I'm not going to be able to do it.
05:54West of London, in East Connemara,
05:58broadcaster Gormla Ni Húrishc has her own questions of the 1926 census.
06:05I was going to be able to do it in Connemara
06:08with English and English.
06:11But I would like to know that
06:13when Connemara was in the 19th century
06:16I was going to be able to do things like the 19th century.
06:23And I could have taken some from the 19th,
06:26but I was at the 19th century,
06:29and he would have taken care of.
06:31I was going to be able to do it in a place in the 19th century.
06:34I drank from the 19th century,
06:36and I was going to be able to lose all my life.
06:40I was a boy,
06:41I was like a boy,
06:43I was going to be a boy and a boy.
06:45Nothing was lost.
06:47I am a child,
06:50I have no girl if I could.
06:54I don't think I would never get socialists
06:56as I was drinking.
06:57There are no other things
07:04that aren't you wanting?
07:12It's not time for you.
07:14We were in the city of Loughlin.
07:15I was a good kid.
07:18I was a kid.
07:19I was a kid in Laughlin.
07:26I was a kid.
07:28I was a kid.
07:30I was a kid in my life.
07:32I was a kid in my life.
07:36Girmla is with her brother Laughlin to learn more about their family's town land.
07:40And she didn't want to have a chance to do it.
07:42And she didn't want to have the opportunity to do it.
07:46In the next one, yes.
07:49She was a great person, and she was a great person.
07:53And she didn't want to make her own way.
07:59Yes?
07:59With her.
08:01With her, yes.
08:02And then she was a great person.
08:06So I found my own and my own culture.
08:10From?
08:11And I cared for.
08:12Yeah, it was a community.
08:14I was convinced to have fun.
08:18I was the one who was here in my family,
08:20of course.
08:21I didn't know and I was able to take care of my family and stay in my life.
08:28And I didn't want to share my family,
08:31I think it's been a long time since I was a boss.
08:37Yes, he was a boss and a boss.
08:40It's a long time.
08:46Well, it's been a long time.
08:49It's been a long time.
08:54It's been a long time.
08:56It's been a long time.
09:00It's been a long time.
09:02It's been a long time to get to the gallery.
09:06But it's been a long time to get to the office.
09:13I was just thinking about how to do a long time.
09:18It's been a long time to get to the office.
09:25It's been a long time to get to the office in the office.
10:02The National Archives is undertaking a major task.
10:06carefully restoring and preserving the 1926 census bringing this fragile piece
10:13of Ireland's history to life. We have 2,496 bound volumes of census forms that we
10:23need to conserve prior to digitization that's over 700,000 forms we're very
10:31conscious that with each page we lift and conserve it's holding somebody's story.
10:38And Mick Lynch is one of the first people to look inside those books. He wants to see the
10:45census pages for his father's home Gunpowder Lane in Cork City. Well you develop these pictures
10:53don't you I've never seen an actual photograph yeah I've got a picture of these fairly poor
11:03poor-conditioned housing but they did continue living there for quite a while people may have
11:08been very loyal to it and loyal to their neighbors and the community that they were in. There are
11:17many people that have got seven and eight people living in the household they all seem to be Roman
11:24Catholic and that none of them seem to have the Irish language from what I can see they're all
11:33two-room houses. It's very obviously working class you can only go by the occupations many of the people
11:40are laborers out of work for six months and that seemed to be fairly common the key laborer Dennis
11:48Regan out of work for four years so it must have been fairly hard and wages would not have been
11:54high
11:55in a period where there's plenty of people out of work and looking for work.
12:01Here we have Lynch so there's seven people six children and a mother Annie Lynch who's my grandmother and she
12:12was 41 years and 10 months and her eldest daughter was 23 which is Mary my auntie Molly and she
12:21was
12:21helping her in the house my uncle Paddy who's 15 and a half more or less but already working as
12:27a
12:28a leather sorter everybody else is still a school child I suppose and my dad John Lynch on this form
12:38he was three years and eight months and it says at this time both parents alive which doesn't
12:46correspond with my understanding I thought my grandfather had died in 1925 it says widow
12:59but that's a bit of a conundrum. On hand to help Mick is Zoe Reed the National Archives
13:07keeper of manuscripts. It's got down that both parents are alive I know that that's not true so
13:13yes and obviously she's Annie's put herself down as a widow so it is slightly inaccurate now have you
13:19noticed anything else about the form that doesn't look as it perhaps should so here you have this
13:25is the guard and so it was James Moraine and he's given his guard a number and here you have
13:32Annie
13:33Lynch. So it says I declare that this schedule is correctly filled up to the best of my knowledge and
13:39belief signature of the household Annie Lynch but there is a little mark which is a cross and it
13:48says her mark so that would probably mean that she couldn't have filled this in because she was
13:54illiterate or couldn't write at least. So the guard filled out the form and he made a couple of mistakes.
14:00Okay. Well he's under pressure. He's under pressure. Should have been out arresting people not fully informed.
14:07But I mean it's just it's a lovely it tells so many it tells so many stories. She was quite
14:13a character
14:14I'm told she was from another age I think even by the time the 60s came around she looked and
14:21would
14:21have appeared like somebody from a different era entirely. And I suppose it existed in a world where
14:28you don't speak you don't read and write would have been a challenge but I don't think that stopped
14:32her from being quite a high profile person in that district. What I think as well as a three-year
14:39-old
14:40with only one parent and limited prospects because you know what's coming after the at the end of the
14:49twenties is the Great Depression. It would have been a struggle I should think and he did say to me
14:55you know it was a struggle. The only person that stayed in Ireland and in Cork was Molly the older
15:02daughter. They all left which was the nature of the of Cork City at that time. I want to see
15:10the area
15:10I understand that it's it was cleared a while ago but there may be some remnants of it and we
15:16may be able to find out
15:17what it was actually like. Well it's an unusual struggle for freedom in Ireland because you had people
15:26who were not ideological. From my reading they didn't seem to have a vision of what Ireland was going to
15:31be it became
15:33an even more conservative country than it had been before under the British state which is
15:39quite a remarkable achievement really. You get independence and you actually
15:44in some ways take the country into an economic decline.
15:57Dermot Bannon is returning to a place very close to his heart. Modelligo, County Waterford.
16:05This is my granny's house. When I say house I always saw it as a shop. There used to be
16:10a HB ice cream sign
16:12out here and it was permanently left out here because granny's shop was open all the time. She was an
16:18integral
16:18part of the community when I was growing up. She was Modelligo. That's what she told me.
16:25This is where my dad grew up. So this is my dad's home place. When I think of old rural
16:31Ireland and
16:31what it was like and the kind of community and how people were, this for me was like a bridge
16:38to that.
16:41We came down here for every summer. This is where it all started. We still tell stories about did you
16:46steal from granny shop? I stole from granny shop. What did you rob? I robbed everything, you know.
16:51So I would have spent a huge amount of my childhood down around here and in Dungarvan which is a
16:56couple
16:56of miles that way and in Kappa Quinn where I had other cousins which is a couple of miles that
17:00way.
17:04When we kind of look back in time, we talk about the big grand towns, we talk about the tenements
17:10but if you took a cross section through this town of what I think is a very average Irish town
17:17for a hundred years ago, what was it like? Dermot is beginning his search through the 1926 census,
17:26one of the earliest snapshots of an independent Ireland. In these pages, he hopes to uncover the
17:33character and personality here as it was a century ago. This is Barrick Street. A lot of those houses,
17:40houses have been demolished and that was the kind of the town edge. It would have all been very small
17:45houses. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Guess how many rooms? Fourteen people living in a four-roomed
17:56house. It's a very, very, very busy street. They're all working locally as well. They're all labourers
18:03either on farms or they're working in the bacon factory. This is Thomas McCarthy. His eldest
18:08daughter is nine, the youngest is one and he's retired. Oh look, he's 66.
18:15God almighty, he got busy later on in life, didn't he?
18:20This for me is now an opportunity to start to put names and people and families to the buildings.
18:34We'll go to Main Street. An insurance agent and a carpenter and a housekeeper said these would have
18:40been a well-to-do family. Licensed Fintner. So this is a business owner, 47 years, Thomas Griffin. Here's
18:48the next page, another licensed Fintner. Twelve rooms. So they must have kept people as well.
18:54Wow, do you know actually, I started on Barrick Street. Within a one-minute walk, the houses,
19:00the businesses are so much bigger. It's like there's two separate classes living cheek by jowl.
19:05Like here's four people living in a twelve-roomed house, next to twelve people living in a four-roomed
19:12house, like three steps away.
19:20Dermot meets up with local historian, Kevin McCarthy, to get a better sense of what
19:25Capacuin was like 100 years ago. Capacuin was a very busy town in 1926. Things like the railway and
19:34the river would have been hugely important here. So for centuries and centuries we were a river port.
19:40We used to export and import goods from Bristol particularly. Yeah.
19:45What the railway also did was it brought visitors, it brought tourism in a way that probably never
19:50happened before. The big employer in situ in the town was certainly the Bacon Factory.
19:56Capacuin Bacon Factory, Capacuin Bacon Factory, Capacuin Bacon Factory. There's such a huge
20:01amount of them worked in the Capacuin Bacon Factory. Built by the Keane family. Keane's were,
20:07I'm going to say homeless in 1926 actually, because Capacuin House, the home of the Keane's, had been
20:13destroyed by fire in 1923. The Irregulars set fire to it because Sir John Keane had been deemed pro-treaty.
20:22Four kids, well they're not kids, they're 26, 20. I'm surprised, just looking through here,
20:31we kind of think this, you know, older kids living at home is a kind of a contemporary phenomenon,
20:37but there's an awful lot of single kids still living at home with parents back in 1926.
20:45Four, five, six kids. How many rooms?
20:52This says 15. That can't be right, can it?
20:5815 rooms. Keane's, that's the Keane's. That's John Keane.
21:05Ah, so these aren't kids at all, these are servants. So this is, this is the big house,
21:11and this really does stand out when you're, when you're, when you're looking through the book.
21:16There was an industrial school in Capacuin. Yeah, if you look there, yeah,
21:18right beside the railway station. It was right in the centre of the town.
21:21Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would have opened in the 1870s, so the industrial schools are a legacy from
21:26our British past, but the irony is that in 1926, there were more kids in Ireland in industrial
21:32schools than there were in the whole of the United Kingdom, which had a population at least seven
21:37times greater than us.
21:42In search of Gunpowder Lane, Mick is retracing the streets of Cork,
21:47where his father would have walked as a child.
21:51So we're on the corner of 98th Street, which was Hospital Lane. Into the buildings behind here
21:56was Gunpowder Lane and a few other lanes. My dad used to speak about it when he was a youngster,
22:02and this whole area was where he grew up and where he scrabbled around,
22:06er, and tried to emerge from whatever Life Court gave him and, and came to us. But yeah,
22:11it's fairly evocative, I think.
22:19First impressions are that the lanes were obliterated. I don't know if if the housing was that
22:27that decrepit or they just reached their end life.
22:39I've got an iPad with an old map of the area, and Gunpowder Lane would have run directly across here.
22:46And we think number 10 on the census would have been somewhere dead in the middle. The front doors
22:51would have been where I am here, and then the houses would have gone that way up towards
22:56Bandon Road. So that's about as close as I can get, I think. We found it.
23:05But these council or corporation flats that came up are now, ironically,
23:10looks like they're getting ready for demolition, so they didn't last that long.
23:16So my dad on the census would have been three years and eight months just coming up to four.
23:21In some senses, he was a Free State baby, I suppose. He was born in August 22, and the Free
23:26State
23:27finally got crystallised in December, I think, of that year. So he was born into what was supposed
23:33to be a new island, but I'm not, I'm not sure it delivered that for him. It delivered, you know,
23:39migration. But maybe that was what he wanted to do. It's easy to blame the state, it's easy to blame
23:44circumstances. But some people want to go, don't they? And that's the, you know,
23:48there's always a motivation like that to see what the world's like outside.
23:54It's a shame that heritage has been lost. So in Cork City, you'd never know that Gunpowder Lane
23:59was there and the other lanes that were around. So that's a bit of a shame. We've got a lump
24:03of tarmac
24:04instead of a landmark that we might have, might have had to preserve that bit of history.
24:17Gormla is keen to learn more about the poverty and immigration that shaped life in Connemara.
24:25Gormla is keen to learn more about the poverty and immigration that has been lost.
24:36Number of rooms occupied by each family. Do-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri
24:44-tri-tri-tri-tri.
24:45And I am sure that I have missed my career before the village of Nathalie,
24:52and also in the office of Nathalie. I mean, I've been able to do that.
24:57Cougar, cougar, cougar, tru-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri-tri.
25:00I don't know if I can't believe that I can't believe it.
25:05I am just a man that I'm not gonna lose.
25:08And I was thinking about the major major part of my life as a being.
25:13It's me.
25:15There are so many farmers and home duties.
25:19And I don't want anyone to do anything else.
25:22And I want to tell you about assisting farm work.
25:25Assisting on brother's farm.
25:27Assisting on father's farm.
25:30You're looking for people...
25:34...of people who are living in the world...
25:36...and people who are living in the world.
25:39And that's what we're living in the world.
25:43We're living in the world.
25:46We're living in the world.
25:48Five acres.
25:50Ten acres.
25:51Eight acres.
25:55Nine acres.
25:57Eleven acres.
25:58We're living in the village.
26:03Her search has become personal.
26:05She's now turning to her own family records.
26:12I've been aiden.
26:14A study.
26:16A study.
26:18I was aist.
26:21I was very proud.
26:24And the other day.
26:27You're able to get a study.
26:28And she is a study.
26:29I am proud that I have learned.
26:32And it's me.
26:34Just in the past.
26:34I would say just now.
26:35And I'm going to take a look at Shani Milk.
26:39I'm going to do it.
26:41But I'm going to do it.
26:43I'm going to do it.
26:44And I'm going to do it.
26:47I'm going to do it.
26:52I'm going to do it.
26:58Oh, I'm not going to do it.
27:00I'm not going to do it again,
27:02And that's what I'm doing here forini!
27:06And now I'm going to do it for years.
27:13Did you have to do it later?
27:19I have to do it later.
27:20You can't do anything.
27:21You can't do anything.
27:31I can't do anything.
28:03I knew you'd be a good friend.
28:15I was like, he's a girl!
28:18I'll tell you.
28:20My love is so-called.
28:22I'm trying to get to work.
28:26I'm not a person who's a person who's a person who's a person.
28:38My privilege is to be in the world.
28:43My privilege is to be in my family,
28:50I was invited to the other, and I was in a way to my parents.
29:01I was in a way that I was in a way to my parents.
29:03And I was like, I don't want to come to my parents.
29:09I didn't want to go to my parents.
29:15and I would like to thank all of you.
29:26Mick has arranged to meet with his cousins
29:28to discuss what he has discovered in the census records about their family.
29:33So we've been looking at the census from 1926, as you know,
29:38and this is the result for our family in Gunpowder Lane.
29:42All the people that we expected to be there are there,
29:45which is good news, I suppose.
29:47So your mum, Mary Lynch, my Auntie Molly, is there,
29:51and then my dad, John, who's known as Jackie to all of us,
29:56he was just under four years old.
29:59Annie Lynch, Annie McSweeney.
30:00We've got a couple of still pictures of her.
30:03It's later in her life, I imagine it's in the 60s.
30:06She looks like she's from another age compared to us.
30:08She is.
30:09Even in 1966, she's from another...
30:11Did you feel that she was like that,
30:13or did you feel she was more of a real person
30:16rather than just a picture that you'd get?
30:17No, she was a real person, a very real person,
30:21very well-spoken, very well-read.
30:24She taught me how to read.
30:26And I was sat in the reading about four and a half years.
30:29Yeah, but at this time, she wasn't able to read herself.
30:32Yeah, but she learned.
30:33She learned later.
30:34She did.
30:35That's remarkable.
30:36And she had the life in times of Daniel O'Connell.
30:42Really?
30:42Which was that thing.
30:43Yeah.
30:43I always remember it.
30:44But she went on to learn to read later.
30:46Oh, she was a great reader.
30:48That's tremendous.
30:54What was that like as a community?
30:55It was brilliant.
30:56There was no kid in there who was short of food coming out of school.
31:00Yeah.
31:01Somebody came up with it, even if it was only a slice of bread.
31:04Did you get a sense that it was a struggle, or did you...?
31:07It was a big struggle.
31:08I mean, everybody struggled to make.
31:10Yeah.
31:10Make money, you know.
31:12But in some ways, the community made up for that.
31:14They did.
31:15Everybody, as I said to everybody, helped one another.
31:18But now, this is all former...
31:21They've knocked it down in the 60s.
31:22All of this block here that you lived on.
31:25But our history and the struggles of your mum and yourselves and granny
31:30and all these people on there, there's no mark.
31:32All we've got to remember our family is along the plumber.
31:35Can we just run it on, quickly?
31:36Yeah.
31:47It's hard to really explain just how much is involved.
31:52I think the general public, they'll open a beautiful image,
31:56they'll be able to download a lovely colour PDF,
31:58but they won't realise how many hands have been through the cataloguing,
32:02the conservation, the digitisation.
32:07Dermot Bannon continues to explore the census records for Capa Quinn,
32:11the place he's using as an example of a typical Irish town in 1926.
32:17Mary O'Brien, 57, widow.
32:20Before the census, there was World War I, there was the Spanish flu,
32:26there was War of Independence, and then there was the Civil War.
32:30It's not surprising that there's a lot of people described as widows,
32:35but to see it written down on page after page after page,
32:40that they were widows upon widows upon widows.
32:45It's very weird because there's life here, there's life in these pages,
32:52and it kind of commands a respect.
32:55Maybe it's the fact that it's handwritten.
32:58Sometimes it's the handwriting catches you as unusual, or a word jumps out.
33:06It's the human element for me, looking at it, looking at these people,
33:10looking at their jobs, where they worked.
33:12For me, the thing that would make me stop would be, you'd see lists of names,
33:17pages and pages and pages, and you'd say, what's that?
33:19And, you know, these would be institutions, they would be military barracks,
33:24or mother and baby homes, orphanages.
33:29So, this section here is for the industrial school in Capequin,
33:35which was, there was industrial schools all over the country,
33:38so I suppose this is a slice of what a part of Ireland was like everywhere.
33:43What's different about this census compared to the previous census,
33:47because previously, everybody was just a number.
33:50This now has got names.
33:54Wow, God.
33:57This is, these are all the borders.
34:00Erm, so five, six, six, six, eight, six, five, eight.
34:07God, they're, they're tiny.
34:11I don't know why I just thought in an industrial school
34:14they would be teenagers.
34:16They're not, they're like, they're five and six.
34:20They're from Tipperary, Watford, Watford City, Tremor, Dungarvan, Carrick in Tipperary.
34:28Father is dead, mother is dead, father is dead.
34:33Both parents dead.
34:37God, there's a guy here now, and both parents are alive.
34:44And he's in an industrial school, and, well, like, he's five.
35:06It's, it's, why?
35:14to have the names written down here and their ages and what where their parents are and where
35:23they came from it it tells so much like why was dennis murphy who is from sligo with both his
35:33parents still alive sent to an industrial school at the age of four you don't even send kids to
35:41school at four anymore god almighty richard costlow two years of age in an industrial school god he
35:54could barely walk gurmlau wants to discover whether her home in unlock an beog shares the same history as
36:06other parts of ireland's atlantic coast she visits the town of carna set in a remote corner of connemara
36:15shodd shipwadur o melode de gus annu thon melode foos foos o gorna agus kid phillie caer acra aga so
36:24nis muna fi egilioor elea shopkeeper elea anna shneti warran ysdoi shopkeeper elea gwaerdi arnilagun shipwadur
36:35gwarna uintiri rorise drich o achra jabela gwaerdi arnilagun swore dhe baalagnous leid pal gwarna sachtow cwui acra
36:46bagaj liwr arnilagun shathathosoch rachul
36:48so
36:48nis muna fi egilioor a fiang nis muna fiang nis muna fiang nis muna fiang nis muna fiang nis muna
37:01fiang nis muna fiang nis muna fiang roes
37:05I would not have to do anything with my family.
37:09I would like to say to myself,
37:12I would not have to do anything else.
37:15It's...
37:16What's up?
37:17I don't know if I was a girl.
37:20But to me,
37:21I would like to say,
37:22I would like to say,
37:23I would like to say,
37:25And I would like to say,
37:31I have a very genuine sense to the people of the country.
37:34I would say that the people who are saying,
37:36the people who are suffering from the country.
37:41The people who are suffering from the country.
37:47Gormla is with her friend,
37:49historian Gerod O'Túthigh.
37:51She wants to know more about the legacy of poverty that plagued Connemara.
37:56I'm very proud of them.
37:58And I'm not sure if I can write it.
38:01I don't know if I can write it.
38:04I don't know if I can write it.
38:04What can I do to learn?
38:08Well, the first night, the starrys.
38:13I was going to get to the line from my mind.
38:16I can't see the line at the time.
38:18And I can hear the line from my mind.
38:23I can't see it.
38:25I can't see it.
38:26I can't see it.
38:28There are many other ways in the world.
38:31I'm not sure what to do with this and in the future.
38:34I get it.
38:34You can't see a lot of things like this.
38:37I can't see any of you from the moment,
38:42I'm not sure what you're doing.
38:43You're not sure what's going on.
38:45I can't see anything like that.
38:47I'm not sure what I'm doing.
38:50I have a conversation here.
38:52I'm going to be a big one.
38:53I'm going to be a big one for you.
38:55I'm going to be a big one.
38:57But we met as the government's commission on the state of Melbourne,
39:04we didn't have enough peace.
39:06But we couldn't have enough trouble,
39:08so, in the past,
39:10we'd be doing it as the last one.
39:13But we were in the hospital and the doctor was 2.5 months
39:17and we were in the hospital
39:19and in the hospital, we were in the hospital.
39:23We were hustling.
39:25Yes?
39:27Well, there are quite a few different things.
39:28But even in the past, there's been a few years from a總.
39:37Let's have a few years.'ll
39:44be there.
39:45before you speak to your parents.
39:47Oh my god.
39:48That's thank you.
39:50That's where it's been.
39:52You see, they didn't know how to be here.
39:56They were not here inам the book or are there.
39:59They were here in the book or are here in the book.
40:02They were here in the book,
40:05and then they were here in the book.
40:09And they stopped paying.
40:09And they stopped paying for the book.
40:09You know the money they have in money.
40:12With $50.
40:13When I was in the UK, I was in the UK, when I was in the UK, when I was
40:17in the UK.
40:19I was in the UK, when I was in the UK, I was in the UK.
40:25I was in the UK, and I was in the UK, and I was in the UK.
40:35Mick wants to find out about another Cork man that shares his father's name, former Taoiseach Jack Lynch.
40:42So this is the entry for the north side of the city, and this one is around Shandon Church.
40:51So we'll look at number one, where the head of the household is Daniel Lynch.
40:57And there are, in total, 11 people living in this house.
41:03And his occupation was as a tailor.
41:06This is a very good hand, you can tell. Daniel Lynch has written this himself.
41:10It's definitely not the hand of the enumerator.
41:14It seems to be fairly prosperous.
41:18They've got two in-laws living with them, who are quite elderly.
41:20Neither of those work for a living.
41:24There are 11 people, and they've got five rooms.
41:27Which is a bit better, but no less crowded, I would have thought.
41:30All of the children are all at school.
41:33The oldest son, Timothy Lynch, who's nearly 16, is still at school.
41:38I don't think that would have been the case for the Lynches in Gunpowder Lane.
41:42So if all of these other children went on to secondary education,
41:46they would have perhaps had better chances in terms of staying in Ireland and making a life here.
41:53So we're at Jack Lynch's house, and there's a couple of plaques.
41:57And, of course, most people will know he was a great sportsman for Cork.
42:02Six All-Island titles, and he became the Taoiseach on two occasions and a government minister.
42:09And I think I'd say that there's a different house to the one we imagined down in Gunpowder Lane.
42:15I do think the key difference can be seen.
42:18The levels of wealth and then the levels of aspiration that his family must have had.
42:25It's great that it's memorialised and there's plaques here,
42:28and Cork people are very proud of what Jack Lynch achieved.
42:33I'm proud of him as well, I think, as a son of Cork in some ways.
42:39I think what my parents are very proud about is they kept us on the straight and narrow,
42:44which I suppose is what Annie Lynch did for her kids.
42:47So my kids have got an opportunity that my parents didn't have for university and all of that.
42:53But I think it's important to remember there's a lot of stuff about migration in Ireland, in Britain, in Europe
42:58and globally.
43:00But all those migrant people are trying to give themselves and their descendants, their families and their communities an opportunity.
43:06And I think we've got to remember that.
43:13Girmla is sharing the 1926 census entries with her aunt, whose father appears on the form.
43:21I mean, how many people were there to share their content?
43:28What were the same things, where they came from?
43:32The next day, the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day, the last
43:39day, the next day, the next day.
43:43And then, I think we were walking behind the scene.
43:43Yeah, the next day at the end.
43:49It was like a relic, anyway.
44:011929.
44:031929.
44:04We should smile as a miracle.
44:09Yeah.
44:121930.
44:13Green.
44:15When did you fall asleep?
44:17No.
44:1846.
44:19I did not show up again.
44:21Even though I could find her,
44:23she was able to do so.
44:23She was able to do so,
44:24She was able to do so.
44:26So, she was able to do so.
44:26Yeah.
44:28I was able to do so.
44:31That's right,
44:32I'll show you a while.
44:33No.
44:34I can't live.
44:39So, I don't know.
44:41Is your son there?
44:42Yes.
44:44Yes, yes.
44:44Are you a soldier?
44:45Yes, yes.
44:48I've had a soldier.
44:50I've had a divorce and a woman who wants to be a baby.
44:56I've had a wife.
44:58I've never been married to a woman.
45:00I've had a wife with me.
45:04That's my wife.
45:10It's a beautiful town, it's got all of the components that make up a very, very typical
45:19Irish town.
45:20It has the factories, it has the shops, it has industry, it has commerce, it had the
45:25mill, it had the landlord, but it also had the industrial school.
45:32This was Ireland of 1926, it was how children were cared for by the state.
45:47Well it's been a good experience getting the hands on the records and seeing first hand
45:51what was going on.
45:54It's great to hear that somebody who couldn't fill in the census form themselves was able
45:59to get themselves literate late in life, was able to read to people and teach them some
46:05lessons in life and use all her experience.
46:09Maybe that is a sign of progress.
46:13But I do feel what was reinforced that the Free State didn't get on initially with what
46:19they needed to do and it took a very long time to get this country moving to address the
46:23needs of the common people which what, from my point of view, is what the national struggle
46:28should have been about.
46:30A census should be about taking a record of where you are, a sense check of where you
46:36are at the minute, getting some data about the problems and then it should be about getting
46:41some answers to those problems and moving the country forward.
46:45But I'm not sure the one in 1926 achieved that aim.
46:58Would understand how many people used to find haben?
47:02You can feel and understand that the próprio national roes, that I had you with at the
47:05moment, the fact I had to think about
47:08something about which of the theatre is on and theucius itself it your foot needs to be
47:13The punkt happens becomes a voice to the state of the state of the state of the state of stores
47:18in Italy and that it is something that a Nazi of the state of皇za ofwing.
47:18And that there must be something dynamism that the country Ranger got raised when..?
47:18I was out of the way I was in the middle of the day.
47:21I wasn't sure I could go back and go back and do something.
47:26But I didn't know what that time was coming,
47:29but I couldn't remember.
47:32So, I was able to get back to the story of the story of the story.
47:42And I was like that.
48:05In the next episode, yours truly, along with author Joseph O'Connor and radio presenter
48:12Louise Duffy. Get her own look at the 1926 census. Join us as we uncover some of the stories hidden
48:20in those records and maybe learn something new about ourselves along the way.
48:30If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this programme,
48:34you can find a list of help and support services at rte.ie forward slash support.
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