"Midnight Feasts" - Hunting for Irish Deaths
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Picture"Scenes from an Irish Wake" by M. Woolf (Wikimedia Commons)

​Civil registration of deaths started in Ireland in 1864.  If your Irish relative died in England or Wales then the same records start from 1837 and from 1855 in Scotland.  Prior to 1864 you will need to look for evidence of death in Ireland via other proxies such as,
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  • Probate of a will or letters of administration being granted - see Wills
  • Entry in a church or cemetery burials register - see Burials
  • Death inscribed on a gravestone or memorial - see Monumental Inscriptions 
  • Death, funeral or obituary published in a newspaper - see below
  • A change of leaseholder noted in the Valuation Revision Books

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Absence of Evidence?

There is also another angle to work when looking for evidence of a death and that is to hunt for when "regular" evidence disappears.  What do I mean by this?  Here are some examples.
  • Dog Licences  Seriously!  Owners had to register their dogs every year so if you find a relative and their pooch, follow the trail forward until the owner's name disappears from that locality.
  • Voter registers are another good example but a bit harder to find online.  Remember also the narrow definition of the franchise at any time.  
  • If your ancestor was in the medical profession (think, doctors, nurses and apothecaries), they would have needed to keep up their professional registration which you would expect to disappear from the registers on their death - see my Medical Practitioners page for more information. 
  • If your ancestor was a Church of Ireland clergyman, then Crockford's Clerical Directories, UK (Anc=£) might also be somewhere to hunt forward for an entry disappearing perhaps.
  • Irish Census records, 1901 & 1911 - was one partner a widow or widower?  If this appeared in the 1911 census but both partners were together in 1901, then obviously you have a decade long window in which to hunt more intensively for a death.  Even if it is the 1901 census, then this is still useful as you know you need to concentrate your efforts on sources with records prior to this year.

However be very wary of drawing too many conclusions as "Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence", as they say.  Think about it, it could have been the dog that died(!) or voters may have moved, etc.  So, just use this technique to narrow the search in other records of death perhaps?
Civil Registration of Deaths

For more detailed information and practical advice, see my Civil Registration Districts and Civil Registration Records pages.
​The main place to start is with the available indexes, transcripts and images of the civil death registers.  These are available both for free and via subscription on a number of sites.  Be sure to make use of as many sources as you can as the indexes and search functions may vary.  Never just rely on one source to generate a list of candidates to investigate - cast your net as wide as possible.
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Reference Pages & Sites
Registration District Browser (Shane Wilson)

Records
Civil Registration Indexes and Register Images, 1864-1920 (GROI)  Free to search and the only place to see images from 1871.  All Ireland up to 1920.
GRONI (on-line access to records - login required)  For deaths in the counties of Northern Ireland over 50 years ago.

These are essentially the same resource which you can search on up to 1958 (for the Republic of Ireland) and use middle names too.  Transcripts only.
Miscellaneous

Irish Deaths, 1864-1870  (FamilySearch)  This is a very small random collection (c.182K).  Check this FS Wiki article first for coverage before searching.
​Ireland, Northern Ireland Deaths, 1998-2020  (FMP=£) c.92k records.  Source?  You jest, of course!
Ireland, Society of Friends (Quaker) Deaths  (FMP=£) c.78k records, apparently dating back to the 1600's.
Newspapers

Newspapers are a great source for tracking down deaths, but remember there was a cost to inserting the notices and therefore it is perhaps a relatively small proportion of the population that indulged in this habit.  There are actually quite a few angles you can explore in newspapers to work out when someone died.
  • Most newspapers had a regular column of births, marriages and deaths, often on the front page.  For couples, you may find clues to the partner's death when the widow or widower dies later. 
  • Personal adverts e.g. personal adverts for funerals or in memorium tributes on later anniversaries of the death.  
  • Funeral reports or obituaries.
  • Legal notices posted in pursuance of probate of the deceased's estate.
  • Business adverts that seek to reassure customers that it is business as usual when either a son takes over from a father or the business is sold.

The word "late" is also a dead giveaway (do you see what I did there?!) - you will often find it before father's names in marriage announcements for example.  Try searching for the man's name with the keyword "late" and see what you find, although you may get a huge number of hits.

Here are the main online sources for Irish newspapers.

Irish Times (Subscription required)  This title does appear on other sites like the BNA, but it also has its own dedicated archive site. 
Irish Newspaper Archives (Subscription required)  Check for titles included.
Irish Newspapers on the British Newspaper Archive (Subscription required)  May be accessible for free in British libraries.
​Belfast Newsletter Births, Marriages & Deaths Notices, 1738-1925  (Anc=£) Nationally important publication, not just restricted to Belfast folk.
Ireland Newspapers, 1763-1890  (Anc=£) Unindexed collection which you can browse.
Irish Newspapers  (FMP=£) Check filters for titles included.
The Irish Newspaper Transcript Archive, ffoliott Collection, 1756-1850  (FMP=£) Limited in scope but useful for Cork.
Tipperary Clans Archive  (FMP=£) Sparse transcripts but perhaps a clue to hunting in broader newspaper collections.
​Overseas Deaths

Perhaps the Irish-related death you are seeking took place overseas e.g. siblings in emigrant families or soldiers serving overseas.  Or you may be following an emigrant family forward seeking deaths in new countries.
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Foreign newspapers are an excellent source.

British Newspaper Archive (Subscription required)  May be accessible for free in British libraries.
British Newspapers  (FMP=£) Check filters for titles included.
​Papers Past (New Zealand)
​Trove Digitised Newspapers (Australia) 
New York Times Archive (Subscription required)
​Newspapers.com  (Subscription required)  Generally North American titles but some other countries too.
Irish Death Notices in American Newspapers  (FMP=£) Indexed collection (c.36k records.) Very limited range of mostly East Coast titles.
New Zealand, Obituaries, 1844-1963  (FamilySearch)  c.311k records.  Transcripts with some images but latter very limited.


Church and civil registration in major destinations for Irish emigrants should also be considered.  There are 1000's of sources for these, so here are some of the major ones that might prove most useful to start with.

India
Did your ancestor join the East India Company, or later, the British Army and marry abroad?  Disease was rife and carried off many, especially children.  Be sure to check out all promising candidates, as when a child died, the next born may have been given its name.  See also my page  "Fighting in a Foreign Field - India".
Scotland
Both Ancestry and FindMyPast return a lot of UK or even English(?!) sources when you search their catalogues with Scotland as the place.  So, I've picked out a few specific collections from each of these subscription sites that look interesting or possibly exclusive to either site. 
​See also my page on "Settling under the Saltire - the Irish in Scotland". Are these parish records sourced from the same original registers?  Church of Scotland?  Who knows?!

England & Wales Civil Registration - Death Indexes
The following collections cover many counties as well as selected transcript sources. 
United States of America
Narrow your search by state and/or faith.  Also swot up on your geography as there are many county level collections e.g. Cook County, Illinois covers most of Chicago.  See also my page on "American Pie - the Irish in the USA."
Canada
Narrow your search by state or province.  See also my page on "Empire Builders - the Irish in Canada".​
Australia & New Zealand
Collections for most Australian states and territories across both subscription sites, including several burial registers and gravestone sources which presumably also have details of the date of decease.  See also my page on "Down Under - the Irish in Australia & New Zealand".
​Long Shots!

These are exactly as titled - you are perhaps very unlikely to find the death you seek in these pages and databases, but you never know as there is plenty of biographical information listed in these sources.
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​​"A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland" (Sir Bernard Burke & Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1912)  Landed ancestors? ​
"Irish Landed Gentry" (John O'Hart, 1887) (e-book)  Landed ancestors?​
Alumni Dublinenses (1593-1846), Pub. 1924 (FMP=£, indexed)  Trinity College Dublin students?​
"Alumni Dublinenses (1593-1860), Pub. 1936" (TCD Digitised book)  Trinity College Dublin students?​​
​Kings Inn Admission Papers, 1607-1867  Lawyers and barristers?
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2022