People, Place and Power – The Grand Jury System in Ireland

36 After 1891, published schematic plans of the building show that county records were mostly stored in these hitherto- empty bays on Floor 6. For instance, the county records of Armagh, Meath, Queen’s County, Tipperary, Wexford and Wicklow were shelved in the Record Treasury on Floor 6, Bay H (Fig. 13). Other county records were located in the Custom House in May 1921. With the burning of the Custom House in 1921 and the destruction of the Record Treasury in June 1922 vast quantities of local records of all kinds were lost. These successive disasters may explain why grand jury records remain largely unknown. Many researchers seem to presume that little survived, and that what remains holds little of interest to the historian, particularly when contrasted with more familiar sources, such as newspapers, Poor Law Records and Parliamentary Papers. These assumptions are incorrect. While it is true that tens of thousands of grand jury records were lost in 1922, and that the survival of the records is patchy, ongoing collaborative research is revealing that far more has survived than is commonly presumed. Many of these records are held locally and are accessible through local archive services or as part of national collections. These surviving grand jury records are fruitful sources for the local or regional historian, providing unique insights into various aspects of past Irish society. Being county- and barony-specific, they offer detailed information on social interactions within and between communities, including presenting an array of evidence on crimes, poverty and welfare, infrastructural developments, economic ordering, and many other topics of interest to researchers. Fig. 13. County Wicklow’s records were stored in Bay 6H in the Public Record Office of Ireland, and included a presentment book for 1712–30. Donegal County Archive, NLI ms 7227