Analecta Hibernica No. 53 is published!
This special issue of IMC’s serial publication marks the centenary of the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland in the Four Courts fire of 1922.
Since IMC’s foundation in 1928, recovering from the disaster of 1922 has been central to its mission. This special issue — which marks the centenary of the destruction of the PROI — has been curated with a view to unveiling, through the careful selection of individual documents, a composite picture of Ireland’s rich documentary inheritance spanning over 700 years.
Published in collaboration with the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, Analecta Hibernica No. 53 includes a descriptive survey of all salved records recovered from the ruins of the PROI — the first attempt to comprehend the salved material in almost a century. The list includes records conserved before 2017 but also c. 370 bundles assessed for conservation after that date.
The final contribution — a colour photographic essay — complements the survey with a visual sample of the salved records, rounding out this special issue with powerful images of preservation despite wreckage. Twenty-nine colour illustrations convey at once the range of documentary formats found in the PROI before 1922 and their varied states of preservation after exposure to fire and the elements. Finally, the essay looks at the techniques used first to protect and then to conserve these precious records.
Other documents gathered in this volume range from the 13th century to 1922 and include: an investigation in 1284 into complaints and accusations against the treasurer of Ireland; one of the earliest sources for Irish labour history (the minute book of the Dublin guild of carpenters for 1514–20); the replacement of the Old English elite by a new Protestant settler class reflected in the guest list for the official instalment of a lord deputy in 1616; the surviving returns from the first official census of Ireland in 1813–15; letters from the PROI correspondence collection documenting its establishment and operation against the backdrop of national and international events up to its occupation and destruction in 1922.
For a list of papers see here