Search Ireland, Inland Revenue Wills & Administrations 1828-1879

These important records are a rare survival of priceless information about early Irish wills. The collection contains indexes for all years (1828-1879), with surviving registers for 1828-1839 that contain extracts from the original documents. These original documents were mostly destroyed in 1922 when the Irish Public Record Office was blown up.

The following is the information contained in the records. The first three appear in both the indexes and registers, but the Registers include more information:

• Name and address of deceased
• Name and address of executor or administrator
• Court where probate was granted
• Date of death
• Date of will
• Relationship of executor/administrator to the deceased
• Value of estate
• Description/inventory of the estate (occasional)
• Names of beneficiaries (occasional)

The records in this collection were created by the Inland Revenue in London to determine tax obligations on Irish estates, so their extracts are mostly interested in the value of estates and the names of the people who would pay the tax due.

Each record or index entry contains the names and addresses of the deceased and their executor (if they left a will) or administrator (if they died intestate), as well as the name of the court that granted probate. Prior to 1858 the diocesan courts of the established church (Church of Ireland) oversaw all local probate, with a Prerogative Court dealing with larger estates. From 1858 they were replaced by civil court districts, with a Principal Registry in Dublin for larger estates.