Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924

TheCatsMeow

If anyone is interested I noticed that Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924 are now available on Family Search. It's interesting reading the offences.

rhapsody

That's interesting indeed, I must start checking all my "lost" people (who I've presumed emigrated/ died without record or with incorrect record) on it. It seems the records cant be viewed through family search unless you're at one of their centres or you're subscribed. If I'm reading it right, the records are in the National Archives.

pinkypinky

Are these not the FMP.ie records? Ancestry links to outside sources now....

http://www.findmypast.ie/content/Irish_prison_registers_1790_1924

TheCatsMeow

pinkypinky wrote: »

Are these not the FMP.ie records? Ancestry links to outside sources now....

http://www.findmypast.ie/content/Irish_prison_registers_1790_1924

Sorry I didn't know about FMP. I just saw new collections were added on FS. Are the IGI records new? I can't remember them being there before.

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1&countryId=1927084

pinkypinky

They're not new either

Looks like Familysearch has the findmypast records without images. Could be useful for those who don't have a subscription!

Jellybaby1

Thanks for this. I don't know if I have anyone as a victim or a prisoner on there but it's fascinating reading. It is also intriguing to read physical descriptions, the names I entered were all quite short people, and I also checked weight on admission and also on discharge, some gained and others lost weight. Descriptions of tattoos also were very telling about the person's personality, and politics. Also great to see next of kin and address. The offences I read proved great reading too, if these guys are part of my tree then they were totally incapable to keeping their goats and cows off the public roads!!

Ponster

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KM7P-D8Z

Offence: Pulling & Stealing Turnips

Right in the middle of the famine.

Jellybaby1

Yes, that's difficult to understand how they could arrest anyone for that in 1850! They were savage times indeed.

yaledo

In the results (on familysearch), I'm seeing that a lot of records have an "also known as" field that doesn't make a lot of sense... For example, in many cases, it gives a womans name as the 'also known as'.

Seems odd.

I'd love to know whether the original record has 'also known as', or is this just a way that familysearch have used to record an additional name from the record

An example:

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KM35-K5J

Peter McDonnell, aka Mathilda McDonnell

Wyldwood

On the original records the AKA is a next of kin. Mathilda McDonnell is either his wife or his mother probably, usually an address is also given.

ZombieBride

My ancestors were naughty, my great grandfather was imprisoned for drunkenness, his wife was arrested for "attaining goods under false pretences" and their son at 15 stole someone boots.

pedroeibar1

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Yes, that's difficult to understand how they could arrest anyone for that in 1850! They were savage times indeed.

It happened regularly at the time of the Famine and subsequent years; it was a rough time and called for rough measures to survive. Theft was common and widespread; this also at a time when property rights were sacrosanct, even to what we would today regard as a ridiculous extent – for example in Kerry on Kenmare’s Lansdowne Estate tenants were not allowed gather fallen leaves for use as animal bedding; nor were they allowed cut any small bits of timber for anything from firing to a brush handle. (There is a record of the agent – Trench – smashing out a piece of wood from a boat repair; he believed the wood was ‘stolen’ from the Estate.)
Over on the History Forum I recently posted here (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=79323459&postcount=23 )

..........In July 1850 a young married woman, Margaret Doyle, of Scott's Lane, Limerick was sentenced to seven years transportation for stealing a loaf of bread from a shop. In her defence it was stated that her husband was disabled as a result of a civil works accident (he had been employed on a Famine Relief project building quays in Limerick) and her two children were starving. She, with her two infants, was transported to Hobart, Tasmania. Her husband was refused permission to accompany her. He never saw her again.

In one 1849 case I came across (when looking for something else) a witness for the prosecution was broken under cross-examination and admitted she was ‘abroad to steal potatoes’ and this explained how she allegedly ‘saw’ the crime.

And from 1857 ................

They lived in mud hovels, generally without windows, and a hole in one end of the roof, out of which stuck a piece of wicker-work like a badly made turf-basket, formed the chimney. They had usually squatted upon the sides of the roads, which in that district were in many places wider than necessary; and having cribbed a little ' garden ' off the field of a neighbouring tenant, they lived — no one but themselves knew how — sometimes labouring, generally idle, and not unfrequently eking out an existence, scarcely raised above animal life, by petty thefts from the neighbouring farmers.

( from ‘Realities of Irish Life’ W. Steuart Trench, Land Agent in Ireland to Marquis of Lansdowne, Marquis of Bath and Lord Digby.)

Coolnabacky1873

I was in the Manhattan Family History Centre today and tried to look at some of the images from the Prison Registers on FamilySearch.

It says on each record that one of the viewing options is to look at them at a FHC but it just said image not available.

The nice lady who works there didn't know why that was so and she is "in" with the folks at the FHL in Utah.

Just in case anyone is going to a FHC in Ireland and hopes to look at them.

genie

Is it worth looking at the images on Find My Past? Do they contain more information than on Family Search?

I also tried to look at the images on Family Search (on the net) but each one said image not available.

Coolnabacky1873

genie wrote: »

Is it worth looking at the images on Find My Past?

For the Prison Registers there is extra information on the image via FMP such as a description of the person (height, hair, eyes, complexion, marks on person), next of kin, sentence length etc..

If possible it is always worth having a copy of the primary document. Transcription errors can occur and other notations or pertinent marks on the original document might not be transcribed.

Plus, it's cool as hell to have it IMO.

ZombieBride

genie wrote: »

Is it worth looking at the images on Find My Past? Do they contain more information than on Family Search?

I found a nice bit extra on my ancestors who by all accounts were rouges and scoundrels.

Coolnabacky1873

A Familysearch blog post from a few days ago says they now have c.130,000 digital images to go with the indexes of Irish Prison Registers.

The viewing restrictions are still there, you can only see them:

• When using the site at a family history center.
• To signed-in members of supporting organizations.

But at least they are starting to get the images on there with the indexes.

Mac222

Has anyone called to family history center ?

Jellybaby1

Well, well, after all this time, we just might have a convict in the family after all. Unfortunately I've let my FMP sub lapse. Can I see these records anywhere else? FamilySearch doesn't say what the crime was and I'm sort of curious.

Jellybaby1

Having received several offers to look this up for me, I now have my information. You're brilliant, thank you everyone!