Townlands in Ireland

Ireland has 32 County divisions. These are further sub-divided and a Barony is the largest sub-division which itself has a number of sub-divisions called Civil Parish (Parish) units. The Poor Law Union (PLU or Union) is another division of the Country into about 160 units which does cross County boundary lines at times. The District Electoral Division (DED) is a sub-division of the PLU. Finally the Townland is the smallest unit or parcel of land in Ireland. There are over 65,000 Townlands with names often being repeated, even within a County, but not in the same DED of course.

Frequently there is a difference in spelling of District Electoral Division (DED) names between the 1901 and 1911 Census data in Ireland. Also there are variations in the spelling of Townland names between the 1901 and 1911 Census data.

This section of our website facilitates comparing DED names between 1901 and 1911 for each County and then viewing the Townland names for that selected DED. This we hope will facilitate searches and in particular those doing family history / ancestry / genealogy research.

Alternatively you may select a County and then click to view all the Townlands in that County, DED names are also displayed and Barony, Civil Parish and Union names are being added. Any of these columns can be sorted alphabetically by clicking on the column heading.