Deep History, Deepening Collaborations

Above: The 1841 census, held on 6 June, counted thirty-seven people in Aghnaskew Glebe townland (Currin parish, County Fermanagh), living in eight houses. The eight census forms were bundled together, and, although badly burnt, fragments of all the townland’s forms have survived. Here we see the surviving fragment of Marget Maguire’s form. Born about 1777, Marget was the head of a five-person household. Living with her were two temporary ‘visitors’, Mary Clerk (age 50) and Allise Maguire (age 10), and two longer-term ‘lodgers’. The townland was a mere 42 acres, so all eight holdings were probably small. Marget was one of two female heads of households in the townland; the other was Rose Maguire. This record is a tantalising glimpse of how much personal and social detail was lost forever when the pre-Famine censuses were destroyed in 1922. Credit: National Archives of Ireland CEN 1841/10/4. 27