How to Find a Grave in Ireland: Online Records & Traditions

Cemeteries on Find a Grave (Ireland): 5,387 ·
Burial grounds in IrishGenealogy: 1,800+ ·
Grave reclamation period: 50 years ·
Common coin tradition: 2 pennies

How do I find someone’s grave in Ireland?

Finding a burial site in Ireland usually means checking three kinds of sources: a global community database, the official state portal, and the local cemetery office. Each has its strengths, and none covers every grave in the country.

How to locate someone buried

1. Start with Find a Grave Ireland. The platform’s cemetery browse page lists 83 county locations across the country Find a Grave (Ireland page). Enter a surname and a county, and the site returns user-submitted records including grave photos, plot numbers, and transcriptions. It’s free and does not require registration for basic searches.
2. Use IrishGenealogy.ie, the official government portal. It offers free access to two record types: cemetery burial records and headstone transcripts. The site covers over 1,800 burial grounds, with links to county-specific databases.
3. Check county-level archives. IrishGenealogy connects directly to local sources: Clare County Library provides graveyard transcriptions for County Clare; Cork City and County Archives holds burial records for the Cork area; Galway County Council Archives has registers for County Galway; and Kerry Local Authorities Graveyard Records covers County Kerry Irish Genealogy (county sources).
4. Consider Dublin Cemeteries Trust for the capital. With 1.5 million records from Glasnevin Cemetery dating back to 1828, this is one of the most complete digital archives in Ireland Dublin Cemeteries Trust (archive description). Its records cover burials from 1828 to the present day Dublin Cemeteries Trust (search page). Searches cost credits: 3 credits give you the grave number and deceased details, 8 credits add information on all others buried in the same grave, and 2 additional credits provide original register images where available Dublin Cemeteries Trust (credits system).
5. Try Ancestry’s UK & Ireland Find a Grave Index, a subscription-based index that aggregates records from both community uploads and official sources. Useful as a cross-reference but not free.
6. Contact the local cemetery office directly for recent burials — many smaller parishes keep paper records that have not been digitised.

Find a Grave’s cemetery browse page lists 83 county locations across Ireland, providing a free and accessible starting point for many researchers.

Find a Grave representative

How do I find out if someone has a grave?

Start by searching the person’s name on Find a Grave Ireland. If no result appears, move to IrishGenealogy.ie and search the burial records section. For recent deaths — within the last 20 years — contact the cemetery office or the parish where the funeral took place. Many Irish funeral homes also keep digital records of interments.

IrishGenealogy offers free access to burial records and headstone transcripts from over 1,800 burial grounds, linking directly to county-level archives.

IrishGenealogy website

For the Dublin area, the Dublin Cemeteries Trust (online search) is the most reliable source. Belfast residents can search the Belfast City Council burial records, which contain about 360,000 entries from Belfast City Cemetery, Roselawn Cemetery, and Dundonald Cemetery Irish Genealogy (Belfast records).

If the person died in County Waterford, the Waterford City and County Archives hold digitised burial registers for five burial grounds in the city and county Irish Genealogy (Waterford archives). For North County Dublin, the free database Buried in Fingal is worth checking Irish Genealogy (Fingal records).

How to find a friend’s grave

If you know the town or county of burial, search Find a Grave first — it is the fastest way to locate a grave photo and plot number. If the person died within the last 50 years, the local cemetery office is likely to have a plot map and can give directions. For older graves, especially in rural churchyards, headstone transcriptions from IrishGenealogy or volunteer transcription projects may be the only record.

Free resources like Timeline Ireland note that Deansgrange burial registers up to the present are published online for free by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Timeline Ireland (Deansgrange records).

The pattern across all these sources: if the grave was dug before 1900 and the headstone is still readable, you will probably find a transcription. If the burial happened after 1950, the digital trail is thinner and the cemetery office is your best bet.

The pattern: using both digital and local sources gives the most complete picture.

What happens to graves after 50 years?

In some Irish jurisdictions, a grave may be reclaimed — that is, the burial plot can be reused — after a period of 50 years, provided no one has purchased a perpetual grave. This practice is not universal: urban cemeteries, especially those run by local authorities, are more likely to enforce reclamation than rural churchyards.

The 50-year period is tied to the standard grave lease term in many Irish cemeteries. When a lease expires, the cemetery authority is supposed to contact the family, but in practice, many plots are reclaimed without notice. If a headstone still stands, it may be removed or incorporated into a memorial wall.

The implication: if a grave is not maintained by descendants, it can disappear from the physical landscape even if it remains in the burial register. That is why IrishGenealogy recommends checking both cemetery burial records and headstone transcripts — one may confirm a plot that the other does not physically show.

What does 2 pennies on a grave mean?

Leaving coins on a gravestone is a tradition found in many cultures, and in Ireland, two pennies — historically a penny and a halfpenny, or two modern euro cents — carry specific weight for those who follow the custom.

The tradition of leaving coins on graves

Coins left on Irish headstones are usually a gesture of respect or remembrance. A single coin may mean “I visited,” while two pennies can signal “I paid my respects for two people” — a spouse, a sibling, or a parent and child buried together. Some leave coins as an offering, a way of saying “I am thinking of you.”

The custom is unregulated: anyone can leave a penny on a grave, and no formal rules govern the practice. However, cemetery staff and regular visitors tend to agree on one point: once a coin is placed, it belongs on that grave until nature takes it away.

Why should you never touch coins left on a gravestone?

The primary reason is respect. A coin left on a grave is a deliberate act by someone honouring the dead. Taking it is seen as theft from the deceased, not from the living. In Irish folk tradition, interfering with such an offering is believed to bring bad luck — a superstition that persists in rural communities.

The etiquette is straightforward: look, but do not take. If you see a collection of coins on a headstone, leave them where they are. The person who placed them may return, or the coins may remain until rain and time carry them away.

Why did they put pennies on the eyes of the dead?

The practice of placing coins on the eyes of the dead has roots that go far beyond Ireland, though it has appeared in Irish customs as a local variation of a much older tradition.

Ancient Greek myth of Charon’s obol

The most widely cited origin is the Greek myth of Charon, the ferryman who carried souls across the river Styx. A coin — usually an obol — was placed in or on the mouth of the deceased as payment for the journey. The Greeks believed that without this coin, the soul would wander the shore for a hundred years Ancient History Encyclopedia (Charon).

Practice in various cultures

The same custom appears in Roman burial rites, in Viking ship burials, and in some medieval Christian communities across Europe. In an Irish context, pennies were sometimes placed on the eyes to keep the eyelids closed during the wake — a practical solution that merged with the older ferryman tradition.

What coins do you put on the eyes of the dead?

In Ireland, the coin of choice was historically a penny — small, common, and readily available. The practice was never universal; it depended on family tradition and local custom. Some used two pennies, one for each eye. Others used a single coin placed on the forehead or in the hand. By the mid-20th century, the practice had largely faded from Irish wakes, replaced by a simple cloth or a prayer card.

The pattern: what began as an ancient payment for passage became a practical wake custom, then a fading folk memory. Today, pennies on the eyes are more likely to be encountered in historical accounts than at a modern Irish funeral.

Why should you never touch coins left on a gravestone?

The rule is simple: coins left on a gravestone are not forgotten change. They are intentional tributes. Touching them — let alone taking them — violates the trust between the living and the dead that the tradition rests on.

Respect for the dead

In Irish cemetery etiquette, removing a coin is considered a form of grave robbing, even if the coin has no monetary value. The person who left it may be marking a private grief, a milestone, or a promise. Taking it steals the meaning as well as the object.

Possible superstition or curse

The folk belief that touching coins on graves brings bad luck is widespread in rural Ireland. Some say the coin carries the sorrow of the mourner and that taking it transfers that sorrow to you. Others believe the coin is a payment of a debt owed to the dead, and that interfering with it disrupts the balance.

Etiquette for cemetery visitors

If you see coins on a gravestone: photograph them if you wish, but leave them in place. If you are visiting a grave and want to leave a coin yourself, one or two pennies is standard. Place them on the top edge of the headstone or on the ledger slab, not on the grass where they might be mistaken for litter.

The catch: even with good intentions, the tradition depends on everyone respecting that unspoken rule.

Frequently asked questions

The search for a grave in Ireland is split between the digital and the physical. Online databases like Find a Grave and IrishGenealogy cover tens of thousands of records, but they are only as complete as the transcriptions and uploads that feed them. The coins on a headstone carry their own kind of record — a silent marker that someone was here, remembered, and left something behind. For the researcher, the lesson is clear: use the databases first, confirm with the cemetery office, and if you find the grave, leave a penny if it feels right, but never take one.