Credit where it’s due…………

[deeahgwitch]

Fair play to the Irish State, it has been a world leader in uploading its Census Records which can be viewed free of charge.
Unlike the UK, where the 1921 census is behind a paywall.
I believe these records should be freely available to all.

I do too OP. There is so much inconsistency within the British Isles - Scottish and N Irish records are harder to check, need to pay to see many of these. 1939 Register available for England and Wales but behind a paywall in Scotland, I think, and only searchable by FOI request in NI. Can't check a birth in NI beyond 1925 yet indexes of births and marriages in England are available until the 1990s. Makes things difficult.

It really does make things difficult.
And when you think all this information was given freely ( though under some duress because there were punishments if you didn’t fill out the census iirc ) it should be free for descendants to view.

They are public records, so should be available publicly. OTOH, thry need storage and upkeep and maintenance, and that all costs, whether physical or digital.

I do think what the Irish have done with their records is brilliant though.

I think I read somewhere that they decided to release Irish records like this because a lot of them were destroyed in a fire at the public records office in 1922, so they are allowing free access to whatever they have.

Just further to this, if you had a forebear who was a child in Ireland in the 1930s, there is a chance that their work was included in the Irish Schools Collection, Schools · The Schools' Collection | dúchas.ie, which was a huge project at the time. Children interviewed their elders and wrote about family history, folklore and their neighbourhoods. I found one of my ancestors on here and the detail was amazing.

Thank you for that@AInightingale