Retracing Archival Footsteps

In the decade after 1922, the PROI received many donations of transcriptions, genealogical notes, certified copies and duplicates of materials destroyed in 1922. Herbert Wood — the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records who wrote the famous Guide of 1919 — was active in his retirement, advising former colleagues in Ireland on manuscripts in British libraries and in private hands. Meanwhile, D. A. Chart, the first Deputy Keeper of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland established in 1923/4, used his deep knowledge of the records lost in 1922 to develop the collections in PRONI. 

Archival Discovery has been a major success of our research to date. The sheer scale of what has survived in many locations around the world — despite the worst the centuries could throw at these records — is remarkable. Building on this, our research in this strand will enable a deeper interrogation of the major collections identified to date, deepening collaboration between our partners.

This strand will also continue our support for the conservation of the 1922 Salved Records, those rare survivors retrieved from the rubble of the Record Treasury. Applying new conservation techniques, and imaging technology first developed for medical use, we will make parchment damaged by time, damp and indifferent storage available to new generations in new ways. These exciting techniques will allow unreadable documents to be read, damaged documents to be repaired, and new scientific collaborations to be formed.