The good news is, first, that in Ireland all wills are public documents once they have gone to probate. Even better, we have a very user friendly way of doing so. Since 1992, all wills are available to any member of the public on the courts website:
https://www.courts.ie/probate-register-online.
You can search for the details of the will of anyone who has died at
http://probate.courts.ie/probate.nsf. This will ask for three bits of information – the person’s first name, their last name and the year in which they died. Having all three narrows things down helpfully but the search function will work off any one of the filters.
The key thing once you find the relevant entry is the Record Number. This has three elements. The first four numerals are the year in which probate was granted (not the year the person died). The next two letters refer to the probate office that handled the will. This will be PO for the main probate office in Dublin. A list of the two-letter codes for other district probate offices is on the probate office register site – for instance MR for Mullingar or LD for Letterkenny. The final six digits are the individual case identifier.
You’ll need the whole record number to apply for a copy of the will from the relevant probate office. There is a link on that web page also for the form you’ll need to fill out to secure a copy of the document. An official copy of the will costs €15.
