08 February 2018

Digital reconstruction of Irish Public Record Office

The folks at Trinity College Dublin will be bound for sainthood if they can achieve every expectation held out by this item ... digitally recreate the building and contents of the Public Record Office of Ireland, which were destroyed by an explosion and fire at Dublin's Four Courts in 1922.

2 comments:

David Hook said...


The building yes. I have a lot of skepticism about what they can do to re-create the contents.

Anonymous said...

Yes, well, genealogical sainthood at least!

I don't know the answer, but this post made me wonder what portions, of any, of the destroyed censuses may exist in current UK archives, notably TNA at Kew. Possibly, some portions may exist in personal archives of those whose families were researched before the dopes in the IRA decided to store their munitions in the building adjoining the Public Record Office in 1922. Such records, or substitute records, notably those of significant or wealthy families, may be contained in TNA or possibly in family estates archives, or in county archives in England where families were Anglo-Irish. It's at least worth thinking about.

I thought of this, remembering that the Fiennes family at Broughton Castle say they have relatively little knowledge or records of their family's history, but I found records scattered as far away as Lincolnshire and other counties, where the family had owned land. Cheers, BT