Married young, couldn’t write and killed by dysentery — new reports offer snapshot of past Irish lives

We might think things are grim but at least it’s not ‘death by dysentery’ grim.

New data released by the Central Statistics Office has shown how Ireland has changed in terms of marriages, births and deaths across almost 150 years.

The CSO yesterday published Annual Reports of Marriages, Births and Deaths from 1864 to 2000 inclusive, illustrating how the make-up of the nation has changed in that time.