Kildare County Council Updates Digital Archives to include Poor Law Union and Town Commissioners’ records
10th February 2025: Kildare County Council’s County Archives Service is delighted to announce the release of newly digitised archival materials. These additions include:
- A selection of volumes from the Athy Board of Guardians, featuring Minute Books from 1841-1862 and a Register of Interments for St. Michael’s Cemetery, Athy, from 1875-1900.
- The Athy Town Commissioners’ Minute Book covering the years 1855-1891.
- Newbridge Town Commissioners’ Minute Books spanning from 1891-1984.
- Two rent books from the Marquis of Drogheda, detailing lands in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare and Mountmellick, Co Laois. The first volume records arrears and rents due in 1874 and 1875 for the Manors of Fontstown and Monasterevin in Co. Kildare, and Maryborough, Mellifont and Mountmellick in Co. Laois. The second volume documents arrears and rents collected for the Monasterevin and Mountmellick estates from 3 February 1879 to 1888. These records serve as valuable census substitutes, in the absence of Irish census returns before 1901.
These new additions complement the existing digitised collections available online, which include:
- Athy Poor Law Union Admission and Discharge Registers (1878-1918)
- Naas Poor Law Union Minute Books (1839-1859)
- Kildare County Council Minute Books (1899-1939)
- Naas Urban District Council Minute Books (1910-1924)
- Various registers of interments
- Records of the County Kildare Grand Jury (1890-1893)
- Curragh Internment Camp autograph books from the 1920s.
Researchers interested in the development of towns such as Athy, Naas and Newbridge as well as those engaged in genealogical research, will find these records invaluable. The material is freely accessible via the Kildare County Council Archives Online Archives service at https://kildarecoco.ie/library/KildareCountyArchivesandLocalStudies/Archives/OnlineArchives/
The digitisation of these volumes was funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media’s Commemorations Fund 2024.
For enquiries, please contact archives@kildarecoco.ie
