Because the records are so extensive and there are so many parishes, the first step in any research must be to try to identify the relevant parish. In the ideal case, where a precise town or townland is known, this is relatively simple.

Any of the Townland Indexes from 1851, 1871, or 1901 will show the relevant civil parish. There are then a number of ways to uncover the corresponding Catholic parish. Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), available on open access at most libraries, gives an account, in alphabetical order, of all of the civil parishes of Ireland and specifies the corresponding Catholic parish.

Brian Mitchell's Guide to Irish Parish Records (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1987), contains a county-by-county alphabetical reference guide to the civil parishes of Ireland and the Catholic parishes of which they are part.

The National Library 'Index of Surnames' (or 'Householders Index') includes a map of the civil parishes in each county and a key, loosely based on Lewis, to the corresponding Catholic parishes. A guide which is less reliable, though useful if the exact position of the church is required, is Locations of Churches in the Irish Provinces, produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. (The reference number is NLI Ir 7265 i 8).

Dublin
For Dublin city the procedure is slightly different. Where the address is known, the relevant civil parish can be found in the street-by-street listings of the Dublin directories: Pettigrew and Oulton's Dublin Almanac and General Register of Ireland (yearly from 1834 to 1849) and Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory (yearly from 1844). The corresponding Catholic parishes can then be found in Brian Mitchells, Guide to Parish Records or in James Ryan's Tracing your Dublin Ancestors, (Flyleaf Press, 1988).

Address Unknown
Unfortunately, in most cases a precise address is not known. How this can be overcome depends on what other information is known.

Where a birth, death or marriage took place in the family in Ireland after the start of civil registration in 1864, state records are the first place to look. When the occupation is known, records relating to this may supply the vital link. For emigrants, the clue to the relevant area might be provided by passenger and immigration lists, naturalisation papers, burial or death records or even the postmarks on old family letters.

In general, unless the surname is quite rare, the minimum information needed to start research on parish records with any prospect of success is the county of origin. Knowing the county, the areas to be searched in the registers can then be narrowed with the help of the early- and mid-19th century land records, the Tithe Books (c. 1830) and Griffith's Valuation (c. 1855).

The National Library 'Index of Surnames' provides a guide, on a county basis, to the surnames occurring in these records in the different civil parishes, giving at least an indication of the areas in which a particular surname was most common. The CD-ROM index to Griffith's can also be invaluable in narrowing the area of research.

Tips
Because of the creation of new Catholic parishes in the 19th century the apparent starting dates of many Catholic registers can be deceptive. Quite often earlier records for the same area can be found in the registers of what is now an adjoining parish.

To take an example, the Catholic parish of Abbeyleix, in County Laois (Queens) has records listed in the National Library catalogue as starting in 1824. In fact, the parish was only created in that year, and before then its records will be found in Ballinakill, which has records from 1794.

Where surviving records appear too late to be of interest, it is always advisable to check the surrounding parishes for earlier registers. The online maps of Catholic parishes at scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/index can simplify this task. These maps are not intended to be geographically precise; their aim is merely to show the positions of Catholic parishes relative to each other.

Since the only published source of information on 19th-century Catholic parishes is Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, which was published in 1837, and the power and public presence of the church expanded greatly after Catholic emancipation in 1836, some caution is needed in identifying which sets of records are relevant to a particular area.

In searching parish records, as for census returns and state records of births, marriages and deaths, a large measure of scepticism must be applied to all reported ages. In general, a five-year span around the reported date is the minimum that can be expected to yield results, and ten years is better if time allows, with emphasis on the years before the reported date. An open mind should also be kept on surname variations - widespread illiteracy made consistency and exactness of spelling extremely rare.

Apart from the obvious family information they record, Catholic parish registers may also include a wide variety of incidental information such as:

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