FAQ
The online catalogue contains over 2 million entries. The vast majority of entries relate to departmental records, modern court records and testamentary material. All files transferred from government departments in recent years are listed to the International Standard of Archival Description (ISAD G), and are uploaded to the online catalogue once editing is completed. We have also been working hard to update and standardise many older catalogues to include them in the online catalogue. This work is extremely time consuming and labour intensive, however.
In general, it is necessary to consult traditional hard copy catalogues to older 19th and early 20th century material held in the National Archives. This may include material transferred prior to the introduction of the online catalogue, including some early departmental records and public bodies such as the Ordnance Survey, Valuation Office and the Office of Public Works, older court records, some archives of the Commissioners of National Education and the vast majority of private and business collections.
The catalogues to many collections do not meet the necessary criteria for inclusion in the online catalogue. The National Archives is continually working to update these lists. This work is extremely time consuming and labour intensive, however. In the meantime, hard copy catalogues to listed collections are available in our reading room. Specific queries can be directed to the Archivist on Duty each day or Contact Us.
For further information on our collections and accessing our services see Historical Records.
The Simple Search allows researchers to undertake a keyword search across the entire online catalogue. It is most useful if researchers are looking for one specific item, such as the Calendar of Wills 1924, which will return a link to a pdf of the calendar or index to wills granted in 1924.
It can be less useful if researchers are looking for more specific details or using a word or phrase that may be found in many file titles. In such cases, the Advanced Search should be used instead.
The Advanced Search option allows users to narrow and limit the scope of a search by using multiple fields.
Researchers can search by ‘Title’ or ‘Scope & Content’, but narrow this search to ‘Reference Code’ or ‘Archive Creator’ or ‘Year From’ or ‘Year To’ by filling in these fields.
For example, Anglo-Irish Agreement in the ‘Title’ field will return any file with a mention of Anglo-Irish Agreement, including early economic agreements with Britain. If a researcher wishes to limit this search, they may place 1985 in the ‘Year From’ field and this will return files created after this date, which will relate to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, 1985.
Reference code is the unique code of the individual document or series of associated documents. A reference code may be numeric (only numbers) or alpha-numeric (a combination of numbers and letters). From 2000 onwards, all reference codes are in numeric format and comprise three parts. For example, 2015/77/86 refers to file 86 from the Office of the Secretary General to the President, which was the 77th transfer to the National Archives in 2015. Older material may be in alpha-numeric format. For example, CSO/RP/1822/17 refers to file 17 from the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers for 1822.
It is necessary to provide a unique reference code to every record transferred to the National Archives to protect the security of the document and to avoid duplication of numbers that can lead to unnecessary complications and confusion for researchers and staff alike.
Title is a keyword search of the file title. The majority of archives held in the National Archives are catalogued by file title, which may be a subject, a place or a name of an individual in the case of testamentary records.
It is necessary for researchers to think laterally about what a file may have been called or what terminology would have been used when the record was created in a government department or court office. Terminology used in file titles often reflects the social and political atmosphere of the time. It is useful to consider the files in the period in which they were created. The use of terms now considered politically incorrect, such as lunatic or wedlock, would have been common place at a particular time in history and may have been used when referring to mental health policy or social issues, for example.
Archive creator is the body from which the archive in question was transferred. The National Archives holds archives from government departments, the courts and various public bodies listed in the schedule to the National Archives Act, 1986. Our holdings also include many business and private collections deposited by private bodies and individuals. This function is very useful for limiting a search to a particular body.
For example, if a researcher is looking for a file from the Department of the Taoiseach they can limit the search to this specific department by typing it into the search box of the Archive Creator field.
Scope & Content is a keyword search of the expanded description of the document in question, and may provide further information about its contents. This search can be useful for limiting a search or for finding a document that would not otherwise be obvious from the file title.
‘Year From’ and ‘Year To’ allow users to search according to specific dates using the following options in the drop-down box:
Between: input a date in the ‘from’ and ‘to’ boxes to search a particular record date span, for example ‘1970–1980’.
=: searches the catalogue for a specific year, for example ‘1975’.
<: inputting ‘1975’ searches the catalogue for records pre-1975 but excludes 1975 itself.
>: inputting ‘1975’ searches the catalogue for records post-1975 but excludes 1975 itself.
<=: inputting ‘1975’ searches the catalogue for records pre-1975 and includes 1975 itself.
>=: inputting ‘1975’ searches the catalogue for records post-1975 and includes 1975 itself.
The Advanced Search option allows users to narrow and limit the scope of a search by using multiple fields.
Researchers can search by ‘Title’ or ‘Scope & Content’, but narrow this search to ‘Reference Code’ or ‘Archive Creator’ or ‘Year From’ or ‘Year To’ by filling in these fields.
For example, Anglo-Irish Agreement in the ‘Title’ field will return any file with a mention of Anglo-Irish Agreement, including early economic agreements with Britain. If a researcher wishes to limit this search, they may place 1985 in the ‘Year From’ field and this will return files created after this date, which will relate to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, 1985.
Where a researcher is unable to locate information in the online catalogue, it is advisable to search the hard copy catalogues located in the reading room. Often, a series of related files may be listed together in the hard copy version but a keyword search online will not necessarily make this connection. This approach is also advisable where a research topic may be vague or where researchers are unfamiliar with the administrative history of the Irish State.
For further information on our collections and undertaking archival research see Historical Records.