Author Joseph O'Connor returns to Francis Street in Dublin’s Liberties, where both sides of his family once lived. Using the 1926 census, he creates a snapshot of the neighbourhood as it stood a century ago: a dense and industrious quarter of the city where Irish families lived alongside international newcomers drawn by the possibility of work in nearby factories, breweries and workshops.
Through the census records, Joseph traces the lives of the O’Connors and his grandmother’s family, the O’Neils, on a street that was alive with trade, migration and quiet ambition. In April, 1926, The Liberties was where communities overlapped and intermingled: Jewish pharmacists ran local businesses, Italian families established new lives, and generations of Dublin families laid roots in the same streets. Characters that could have come from one of O’Connor’s own novels all staring back at him from the pages of the census.
One Italian family in particular catches Joseph’s attention. The Roccas lived on nearby High Street, just a short distance from his grandmother’s home. Their story, preserved in the census returns, reveals how close the two family’s worlds were to one another. Something that might be seen as inconsequential were it not for the fact that, years later, Egidio Rocca’s granddaughter Bernice, would become one of Joseph’s closest friends. Their friendship has endured for more than forty years, linking two families whose lives were unknowingly inter-twined in the Liberties a century earlier.
Being involved with this project was a tremendous privilege. My time in the archives and in Francis Street has left me with a shimmering set of images which I know I will never lose.
A place of stubborn independence, of a certain resistance to getting told what to do, A neighbourhood of working people looking after their families and each other.
My great-grandfather, a trade union organiser in the city of Larkin and the lockout. My great grandmother who owned a shop and held a household together. My people who were chimneysweeps and lamplighters and Guinness workers. In particular, the indomitable strength and spirit of the Liberties women, their never-ending courage and resourcefulness.
The welcome given to the outsider in this oldest part of the city where people born in other lands became proud, hardworking Dubliners. Some had little in the way of material wealth; many had stoicism and strength.
My time in the archives on this project was like entering a companion-novel to James Plunkett's brilliant 'Strumpet City' teeming with life, loss and working people's solidarity.
I am so touched to have been allowed to read my family's story in census returns and testimonies. And as ever, so deeply proud of my family's Liberties heritage.
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.
