Our Research Library includes a set of original volumes of the Primary Valuation, better known as Griffith's Valuation, for Poor Law Unions in Ulster and some from other parts of Ireland. These volumes were kindly donated to us by Professor Richard Clarke.
Named after the Commissioner of Valuation, Sir Richard Griffith, Griffith’s Valuation is one of the best known Irish genealogical sources, and is all the more important because of the loss of nearly all nineteenth-century census returns. It derived from the work of the Tenement Valuation and was produced in printed and easily accessible form between 1847 and 1864.
Although it is now possible to access Griffith's Valuation online, there is still something amazing about being able to browse the original printed pages and find an ancestor's name and discover where they lived.