How to research your Irish family - first post updated.

Yaya,

Try the valuations office next. There may be notations on the file. This would at least give you the exact date that the pub transferred to your family's ownership and out of it again. The Registry of Deeds might hold further information on it but it is a bit daunting to go in there - they are very helpful but it's a complicated system....last resort I would say.
You could also check with the Probate Office to see if there's a will for the previous owners. I'm more familiar with much older wills in the National Archives but they do not go as far as the 1920s/30s. If a modern will was probated then it becomes public record and should be accessible. Wills were not that common until the latter half of the 20th century. In your case, where a building passes to seemingly unrelated people, it's possible there'll be a will.

Is it possible they did not actually own it but managed it?

Yes, just the occupiers and rate payers.

I haven't used the brsgenealogy site much myself - mainly because I feel it's an extortionate amount per view. Most of my ancestry is Dublin based and they don't have the city included.

It's worth noting that their work is done by volunteers in different family history societies in each county. It's not a State-run or organised thing.

Also with death certs, information is frequently wrong, right up to the current day. My own grandmother is down with an incorrect age because they didn't verify against her birth date and the enormous hassle that it will cause to fix it has lead to it staying inaccurate. The person giving the information on a death cert may not have the same information as the dead person. If you have a marriage cert and a death cert, then the one where the groom is alive and giving the info himself seems more likely to be correct. Remember too that people frequently used different names and that a middle name could be used on one cert and a first on the other. Spelling was also not formalised for many places and surnames until the early 20th century and the person may have been illiterate and so relying on a third party for spelling.

You could read the start of the sticky!

They're index references from the GRO. Make a note of

Year
Quarter of year (if after 1878)
Registration district
Volume
Page number

After 1878, the year’s worth of births, deaths or marriages were registered and broken down by quarter (March, June, September, December). Prior to then, there’s no quarters.

So a sample record might look like this:

John Joyce
Registration district: Oughterard (Galway)
Year & Quarter: Jan-Mar 1885
Estimated birth year: 1813
Age on death: 72
Film number: this is only relevant if you are using a Family History Centre in the LDS church
Volume: 4
Page: 299

Or in short hand: John Joyce, Oughterard Q1 1885 4/299
You can go to here http://www.groireland.ie/apply_for_a_cert.htm and download the form.

The GRO website is somewhat antiquated and does not yet include online ordering but you can download the forms for ordering a birth, death and marriage cert. The form is unfortunately set up for living people ordering their own certs and not for research purposes. You’ll see that it includes PPS numbers and specific birth date, etc. What I do is put down whatever information I know and write in the “Oughterard Q1 1885 4/299” where ever there is space. I also do a cover note to explain. This form can be posted with a Euro cheque (drawn only on Irish banks) or you can put in your credit card details. It can also be faxed. I have used the fax and cc details safely several times but I realise that lots of people will not be happy with that. There are several types of cert but the relevant one for research is the cheapest €6 option. It’s a full photocopy of the registry entry.

The other way to get the cert is to go into the Research room in the Irish Life mall on Abbey St in Dublin which is a branch of the GRO. It is an expensive place so it’s best to have your references already. They have forms you can fill out with the same details as above. At a cost of €4 per cert and a limit of 5 certs a day, you can have your cert in about 10 minutes. It’s very frustrating to be limited to 5 so if you can co-opt friends to order some for you at the same time.