By Fiona Fitzsimons
The Valuation Office collection contains three distinct sets of records: the Archives (see Kindred Lines, HI 31.6, Nov./Dec. 2023, p. 33), Griffith’s Valuation and the Cancelled Books. The Cancelled Books comprise the largest part of the collection, collated over the longest time, from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1980s.
Over a period of 130 years, the Valuation Office carried out regular surveys: once or twice a year in the cities and about every eighteen months to two years in rural districts. A manuscript fair copy of the valuation for each district was held in the Dublin HQ. As new surveys were completed, the data captured were ‘marked up’ in the manuscript copy. Each year the clerical officers used different coloured inks to show changes to the records: a tenant’s name struck out and a new name inserted; a new acreage recorded as holdings were amalgamated; a valuation revised, as property was upgraded or fell into dereliction. The clerical officers recorded the year that each revision was made in the outer [right] margin of the folio manuscript, and prepared a colour-coded key in the index page of each book. About every twenty years the manuscript book was cancelled. A new ‘fair copy’ was made, incorporating all revisions, and this now became the official record—the baseline against which everything else was compared.
The Cancelled Books were bound into volumes organised by county, district electoral divisions (DEDs) and townlands. Cities were organised by wards and streets. The oldest books were bound at the back of each volume. As a rule of thumb, every rural district has two or more volumes containing about seven or more cancelled books. Larger towns and cities have multiple volumes, reflecting rapid urbanisation.
In 1922 partition created two jurisdictions, each with its own institutions. The records of the Valuation Office for the Irish Free State remained in Dublin, while records of the six counties of Northern Ireland were transferred to Belfast. Unusually, the Valuation Office surveys continued without interruption during the Second World War. Between 1978 and 1984, domestic and agricultural rates were discontinued in the Republic of Ireland, although commercial rates survive. In Northern Ireland the Valuation Office abides.
In 2023 the Cancelled Books for the South were transferred to Tailte Éireann (a merger of the Property Registration Authority, the Valuation Office and Ordnance Survey Ireland) and held in the Valuation Office, Abbey Street, but are due to be transferred to new offices in the Distillery Building, Smithfield. Digitisation of the records is in hand—colour scans for 22 counties are available as pdf books in Abbey Street. The books are not indexed, and researchers must search by place.
In Northern Ireland access to the records varies over time. Records from the mid-nineteenth century to 1930 are published on the PRONI website (https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/services/searching-valuation-revision-books). Manuscript Cancelled Books from 1930 to 1990 are available in the PRONI’s Reading Room. Cancelled Books after 1990 are working records, held in the Land and Property Services Office in Lanyon Place, Belfast. Visits are by appointment only.
The Cancelled Books are the most complete record of all Irish households, with 100% coverage in rural areas, falling to 65% in some city parishes. Between the mid-nineteenth century and the 1980s we have an almost complete run. These records are the backbone of all family and local history research in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland.
Fiona Fitzsimons is a director of Enneclan, a Trinity campus company, and of findmypast Ireland.