Qualla: National Archives of Ireland

National Archives of Ireland: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. Ernie O'Malley described what he saw on the afternoon of 30 June 1922 in The Singing Flame: "A thick black cloud floated up about the buildings and drifted away slowly. Fluttering up and down against the black mass were leaves of white paper; they looked like hovering white birds." What he was watching was the Irish Public Record Office at the Four Courts in Dublin going up in a single enormous explosion. The Anti-Treaty IRA garrison he commanded had stored its munitions inside the records building, and Free State army shellfire had reached them. The white birds drifting through the black cloud were seven centuries of Irish documents - parish registers, court rolls, wills, deeds, military returns, manuscripts from the thirteenth century forward - being incinerated above the city.

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National Archives of Ireland: Before the Archive

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. For most of Irish history, official papers were considered the personal property of the officials who wrote them, and were often carried off when officials left office. In 1702, near the end of the reign of William and Mary, the State Paper Office was established in Dublin Castle...

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National Archives of Ireland: 30 June 1922

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Library of Ireland on The Commons, Public domain. The Irish Civil War broke out in late June 1922 when Anti-Treaty IRA forces under Rory O'Connor seized the Four Courts complex. The Free State government under Michael Collins demanded their surrender. When they refused, the new National Army began shelling the buildings on 28 Ju...

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National Archives of Ireland: A Single Archive

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. The State Paper Office at Dublin Castle and the Public Record Office at the Four Courts continued to operate as separate institutions for another six decades, even though by the 1970s the logic of combining them was overwhelming. The National Archives Act of 1986 finally merged t...

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National Archives of Ireland: The 1901 and 1911 Census Online

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. What survives in the archives today is partly compensation for what was lost in 1922. Particularly precious are the household returns from the censuses of 1901 and 1911, which were taken after most other manuscript census returns had already been destroyed. (The manuscript return...

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National Archives of Ireland: What an Archive Does

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. Visitors who come to the Reading Room on Bishop Street first apply for a Reader's Ticket - valid for three years, requiring photo ID and proof of address - and then begin to work. The Records Acquisition and Description Division handles the ingestion of new files, conforming to t...

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