Actor Eileen Walsh travelled to Quaker Road in Cork, where her grandfather Patrick McCarthy spent most of his adult life, laying family roots in a community still occupied by Eileen's close family today.
Through the census, she begins to piece together the lives of those who once shared the street: families living side by side, houses divided into multiple dwellings, and neighbours whose stories have disappeared from memory.
She meets with oral historian Tomás Mac Conmara who describes the struggles her grandfather might have faced within a tight knit local community in 1926 that was dealing with the fall-out of years of conflict. A conflict her grandfather was caught up in as a young soldier fighting on the anti-treaty side.
In doing so, Eileen paints a detailed picture of an ordinary Cork street rebuilding itself in the aftermath of the revolution years in Ireland and gets a greater insight into the roots of the community that raised her.
I think I passed my History at Leaving Cert, I can’t actually remember as it had no real interest for me. My sister and my cousin are the family history buffs so when the call came from Come to your Census, I knew I couldn’t say no as the gaps in their knowledge could be filled by RTÉ!
Cut to a few months later and this lazy student of history felt enthused and energised by the team of researchers and historians we met. Who’d have thought!? Probably not Kitty Murphy -my history teacher!
Working on this programme and getting such intimate access to the Achives was incredible. My Grandfather was suddenly everywhere; he was alive and youthful and only beginning his life’s journey.
It was gasps and surprises and laughs and phone calls and "you won’t believe where we was!" Conversations that still continue with my lovely Mum and her family when they pop round for a cuppa.
Episode One of Come to Your Census broadcasts on RTÉ One at 6.30pm on Sunday May 3rd 2026 and Episode Two broadcasts on Sunday May 10th 2026. at 6.30pm. Both episodes will also be available on RTÉ Player.
