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They have been obliged to pawn their day and night covering to provide food and are now suffering from cold and hunger [to] much for human [indurance].

This heartrending quote appears in a petition dated 22 April 1846 (ref. NAI/Famine Distress Papers/D819/1) from the tenants of Killard, county Clare to the Lord Lieutenant, in which they describe their wretched condition and implore Queen Victoria’s representative in Ireland for assistance. This petition and many others like it can be found in the Distress Papers, a record series which forms part of the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers. The latter collection is one of the most valuable sources for research on Ireland in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and is held in the National Archives – www.nationalarchives.ie –on Bishop Street in Dublin.

Images of the Distress Papers have recently featured both on the RTÉ History Show’s Twitter account – @RTEHistoryShow – and on the Great Irish Famine project at www.rte.ie/history/the-great-irish-famine, an online collaboration between University College Cork and RTÉ and generously supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Designed as a companion website to ‘The Great Hunger’ documentary, this ongoing web project displays contemporary Famine-era documents which are explained and contextualised in articles by historians of the period and further illustrated by maps from the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine.

So how and why did the Distress Papers come into being? Such was the volume of letters, reports and petitions pouring into the Chief Secretary’s Office requesting funds and assistance during the Famine that the authorities in Dublin Castle deemed it necessary to give separate treatment to incoming papers relating to distress. Thus was born the Distress Papers, a distinct sub-series to the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers, which was begun in March 1846 in an attempt to tackle the avalanche of pleas for aid, many of which came from the west and south of the country, regions which were being ravaged at the time by the Famine.

What do the Distress Papers actually contain? Their content tends to be routine for the period and includes some of the following document types:

• Reports on the extent of distress among communities across the country
• Letters relating to the establishment of relief committees
• Applications from various localities for funds granted under famine relief legislation
• Letters from the British Treasury concerning the spending of funds
• Correspondence from the Relief Commission and the Office of Public Works recommending specific projects for funding

What can the Distress Papers tell us? This sub-series is invaluable in helping us to better understand the Famine’s impact on Ireland’s people and landscape and the reasons for the cataclysmic changes wrought in Irish society in less than a decade. The Famine and its consequences permanently changed the island’s political and cultural landscape, resulting in over one million deaths and the emigration of an estimated two million people. It was the catalyst for a century-long demographic decline, with Ireland’s population falling by 20–25% due to death and emigration.

The Distress Papers can be used for comparative analysis as they illustrate how uneven the Famine’s impact was felt around the country and are a key resource for those studying the progress and impact of the Famine in particular geographical areas. They tell of the different Famine experiences of the eastern and midland counties – less badly affected than those in the west and south, which reported calamitous death tolls and the decimation of many rural communities.

The Distress Papers also tell us the stories of the people behind the grim statistics. They give a voice to the dying and the poor whose lot it often was to remain invisible or voiceless in official records. Behind the dry bureaucratic language used in the records lies all too real human suffering and tragedy. The Distress Papers, in common with those of the Famine Relief Commission, the Poor Law Commission, the Chief Secretary’s Office and the Office of Public Works, provide a variety of perspectives on the Famine. They enable an analysis both of the extent of distress and of government response at local level, as well as the degree to which prevailing philosophies of government and economics had an impact on the administration of relief.

On another and no less important level, the searing first-hand accounts of privation and destitution to be found in many of the Distress Papers place the human experience of the Famine centre stage. In doing so they ensure that the voices of its victims continue to resonate to the present day.

Elizabeth McEvoy, Archivist

At the closing of 2020 on December 31st this grim and traumatic year confirmed its character when our beloved colleague, archivist, Gregory O’Connor, died suddenly.

To be honest with you while writing this it can still seem unreal. We hadn’t seen Gregory in person since lockdown in March. Weekly team Zoom meetings are one thing but there was nothing quite like seeing Gregory come along with his distinctive gait (which remained unaltered despite a hip operation), his flapping coat and his briefcase. Gregory served in Public Services and our team is small, every staff member is hugely important to the running of the service but even more so when the staff member is like Gregory, one with – this is no exaggeration- an encyclopaedic knowledge of archive sources and Irish history and, most importantly, a limitless generosity in sharing that knowledge.

Gregory leaves behind a family and one can’t compare our loss to the O’Connor’s, our condolences extend to his children and his wife, Pauline. However, it is no understatement to say that his loss has been extremely painful and will come further into focus when ‘business as usual’ resumes at Bishop Street.  A few of his closest colleagues who worked with him in Public Services pay tribute to him below.

First, Head of Public Services, and a close personal friend of Gregory as well as a long standing colleague, Brian Donnelly:

When the sad news reached the existing staff in the National Archives and retired staff too, there was shock, disbelief, sadness and more than a few tears were shed.

Gregory was an institution in the National Archives and an irreplaceable one.

I remember him telling me that his grandfather was born in the 1830s and his father in the 1890s. I’m sure that this coloured his view of the passage of time. A sense of history and curiosity was certainly stimulated by his father, who had attended the founding of the Irish Volunteers and the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa. He worked in the Land Commission and Gregory was delighted to find him identified, in one of the police files in the archives, as a particularly dangerous man. But he was a man with moral scruples and declined to take part in the War of Independence as he was opposed to the taking of human life.

Gregory started his civil service career in the Department of Finance, and kept in contact with many friends there.  He joined the National Archives during a period of great change. His interest in the archives gave him an unprecedented knowledge of sources and made him the authority on our holdings. In the reading room he was generous in sharing his knowledge and helped generations of researchers – academics, genealogists, family historians, local historians. He was one of the first archivists to receive the designation Higher Archivist when it was introduced to reflect experience and knowledge in the archival field. When there were difficult questions, Gregory was the man most likely to know the answer. Gregory worked in the field outside the archives as well, often risking life and limb, and brought in many collections from courthouses and solicitor’s offices.

He was a polymath, a talented linguist and an inveterate traveller. He was a great attender at religious services, particularly those conducted in foreign languages.

He had a great sense of humour. In the morning he would come into the office and make a little joke with whoever was behind the reception desk. This would continue during the day with staff and readers and end when he made a final quip to the security man as he was leaving at night.

He was generous both with his knowledge and with his time, whether it was in Rathfarnham where he was President of the Historical Society or as a stalwart member of archival organisations such as the committee of the Irish Society for Archives. He was a most conscientious worker and was invariably the last person to leave the archives at night. We shall miss him but we will not forget him.

Public Services Archivist, Suzanne Bedell:

I first got to know Gregory in 2016 when working as a contract archivist at the National Archives. He was always so friendly and he always stopped to say hello when he passed through my workroom on his way to find files he needed to answer queries. He took a particular interest in what I was cataloguing at the time, especially the bankruptcy office collection, as he was an expert in all things court records. It was then I learnt of his love of travel and how he took an interest in learning languages.

A couple of years later, I started working in my current role as an archivist in the Public Services Division, where I again worked alongside Gregory. As an archivist working in Public Services it can be quite daunting at first as there is a lot to learn. You’re only getting to know collections, how the finding aids work and you’ve to assist researchers as best as you can in the Reading Room, on the phone and via written correspondence.
During those times I relied heavily on the Public Services team, including Gregory, to help me through these early stages in the role.

In the Public Service Division we all work so closely together. We are like a little family. I honestly couldn’t thank Gregory enough for all his patience, wisdom, help and the constant support that he provided not only then but throughout my time working with him. He always had a smile on his face and was only too happy to assist. Gregory was also very supportive throughout the pandemic when we all couldn’t work in-person together. He would help us out with his photographic memory, remembering where to locate material whist he worked remotely. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the collections we held and always had an answer to the most unusual request.

Gregory was a valued mentor and a dear friend who will be greatly missed by all. The National Archives won’t be the same without him. May he rest in peace.

Archivist responsible for Education and Outreach, Elizabeth McEvoy:

When I think of Gregory, it still comes as a shock that in certain cases, the past tense must be used because in my mind’s eye, he is still walking down Bishop Street, coat flapping, trusty umbrella and briefcase in tow, en route to the office. In common with most of my workmates, I hadn’t seen Gregory for much of 2020 due to the pandemic and so his all-too premature passing still has an unreal quality to it.

I prefer instead to remember what made Gregory tick. His love of languages (the more challenging, the better) and the law. His mixing of business and pleasure when practising his Romanian on a visit to the National Archives in Bucharest. His fan’s delight in scoring a ticket to see Brian Wilson and the Wondermints live in concert in the early noughties. The pleasure he took in table quizzes. His sweet tooth.

In his eagerness to learn new facts and his steadfast commitment to his legal studies in King’s Inn’s at a stage in life when many are contemplating a relaxing retirement, Gregory was an exemplar of life-long learning. Running in tandem with this was his support and long-standing membership of his beloved Rathfarnham Historical Society, myriad language/conversation groups and his committee membership of the Irish Society for Archives, where he could always be relied on for good ideas and suggestions for lectures and events.

These qualities of support, loyalty and commitment were also on display in Gregory’s role as a colleague in the National Archives. Over the course of 21 years in the National Archives, many of them spent working directly with Gregory in Reader/Public Services Division, I cannot remember a single time when he refused to give a talk, to fill in for a colleague or to swap Reading Room duty over the coveted Christmas holidays. Gregory’s willingness to share his knowledge (sometimes on the most arcane point of law), his collegiality and generosity with his time were known and appreciated in Bishop Street and beyond and made him an in-demand guest speaker for both internal and external events.

It’s Gregory’s joie de vivre that will live long in the memory and it’s certain that ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís.

My colleagues have said it all beautifully but I would like to add that that in the 5 years I worked with Gregory as a ‘needy’ archivist learning on the job, there was never once an expression of exasperation as he saw my number pop up on his phone or I knocked sheepishly on his door seeking urgent advice for a reader. His office was always freezing, he never felt the cold. He never hesitated to swap duty to accommodate my travels home to my family at Christmas-time and he was always quick with a pun. He was rarely punctual. My last memory of Gregory was on a National Archives Zoom our kind of Christmas get-together in mid-December.  I was already at my parents’ house and brought our dog to sit on my lap, Gregory emailed me after and remarked on how nice it was to see me ‘and your charming dog’, to me that sums him up – a lovely person.

We would like to thank all archive colleagues and our reader’s, of which there have been many, who have contacted us to express their sorrow on hearing of Gregory’s death, it has meant a lot to us and his family.

Natalie Milne, Archivist, Public Services

The National Archives public events programme for 2021 began with a talk on February 26^th by Dr. Michael Kennedy, the Executive Editor of the Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP), titled: ‘”The coming generations would reproach us for not taking all the available precautions’’: the destruction and preservation of the records of the Department of External Affairs during the Second World War’. The talk focused on one of the enduring legends in the history of Irish foreign policy in that a large amount of important documents of the Department of External Affairs (now Dept. of Foreign Affairs) were purposely destroyed in May 1940.

Dr. Kennedy explained that it was in the context of World War Two and the succession of events from the Munich crisis in September 1938, the declaration of war in 1939 and the invasion scares of 1940 which lead to such action. It may be easy now to think lightly of such a fear but it was seriously anticipated that Ireland could be invaded by an Axis or Allied power then at war. It was considered likely that if the German’s invaded Ireland they would launch bombing raids on Dublin and parachute in, while also coming in by sea via the Cork coast. The Department of Finance was therefore tasked with the emergency planning to protect state treasures and official archives that would be considered a national disaster or impede the functions of the government if lost.

It was decided to make duplicates of records by using a Kodak Recordak microfilming machine with filming being undertaken at Beggar’s Bush Barracks. The emotive statement that ‘’the coming generations would reproach us for not taking all the available precautions’’ was made by the Kodak representative Daniel O’Connell to Minister Seán McEntee who proceeded to take the protection of Irish government papers seriously.

Secure locations for storage outside of Dublin were sought and Coláiste Muire Preparatory College in Tourmakeady, County Mayo was identified as one safe place to house archives, artefacts and artworks from the National collections. The school had 61 students and was run by nuns and it was considered that ‘the occupation of the building by the nuns would be an advantage and in the nature of an added protection’.  Collections were stored there from 1942 and removed in June 1945.

With regards to the destruction of the Department of External Affairs files Dr. Kennedy has undertaken forensic work to discover what was destroyed and when in the ‘trail of debris’ that such actions leave. Gladly Dr. Kennedy identified that the destruction was far less than what was anticipated, it had been suspected that 50% of the records generated between 1928 and 1941 had been destroyed but that has proved to be a huge over-estimation.   Although no list of what was destroyed was kept, by using the registry system Dr. Kennedy has been able to catalogue what was incinerated under the instruction of ‘if in doubt, destroy’.   Although the volume of material destroyed is much less than feared the fact that the files were of a high level nature, deemed dangerous if they were to fall into German hands, then the loss is significant.   The policy was not to preserve or copy records of a compromising nature but to ‘confidential destroy’ documents that showed relations with the British government, the mark of ‘CD’ followed by the date identifies material no longer extant. The systematic destruction, particularly of confidential reports, prove a real loss to the understanding of high level Irish foreign policy.

Dr. Kennedy’s talk highlighted the haphazard nature of state paper preservation and also that the practices and procedures for record preservation was particularly varied in the External Affairs consulates. It was not until the war made the consideration of preserving state records necessary that archives received attention since the foundation of the state.

Dr. Kennedy’s talk was not only interesting but also very entertaining, his familiarity with the department and the personalities involved really brought the period to life. It was remarked that there may indeed have been some documents destroyed that could potentially embarrass the department, particularly those generated by Charles Bewley, the pro-Nazi Minister to Germany (1933-1939). However, as Dr. Kennedy stated, record keeping, regardless of the difficult history it may contain, is part of a democracy and these records would not be shied away from.

More information on what was destroyed by the Department of External Affairs can be found in appendices of volumes 5-7 of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy:  https://www.difp.ie/

On the night of February 23^rd 1943, 35 girls and one adult died in a terrible fire at St. Joseph’s Orphanage, Main Street, Cavan.  Nearly 80 years on the documents held by the National Archives relating to this cataclysmic fire brings the chaos and tragedy of that night vividly to life.

The transcripts (ref. ENV/INQ/1/1/3/10) of the proceedings from the inquiry on the fire, held in April that same year, detail the circumstances and actions taken in response to the fire and the overall impression is how hard local residents tried to help, but ultimately how inefficient the response was in every respect.

St Joseph’s Orphanage was first established as an Industrial school in 1869 by the Sisters of the Poor Clares, an enclosed and contemplative order, a year after the first Industrial School Act.  The institution expanded over the years to incorporate a National School in addition to the convent.

The fire broke out in the portion of the convent premises devoted to the Industrial school. Specifically a block of buildings including the laundry, kitchen and refectory on the ground floor, class room number one and Our Lady’s Dormitory on the first floor, and St Clare’s and the Sacred Heart Dormitories on the second floor. It was established that smoke from an electrical fault had been smouldering in the laundry undetected for a few hours until finally around 2am the fire took rapid hold and decimated the building and the many lives within it.  The transcripts convey the confusing and conflicting accounts of what occurred on that night with lengthy questioning on the first identification of smoke to the first view of flames. The sense is that the first view of smoke was not taken as seriously as it should have been.

The inquiry recorded that 35 children in all were trapped in St. Clare’s Dormitory “they might have been trapped by their own disinclination to go a particular way or fail to go a particular way. But they were trapped along with some children from the Sacred Heart Dormitory who went into St Clare’s, the smoke, perhaps, not being so severe there…Nine escaped, some two or three by jumping from the windows of St. Clare’s Dormitory into Sullivans’ yard, and the others by being rescued by civilians and the Guards who were in Sullivans’ yard with ladders”.

The inquiry papers report attempts to put out the fire at the request of the Sisters before action to evacuate, on ladders breaking and ladders being too short to reach children screaming at windows, the arrival of the fire service 40 minutes after the raising of the alarm and arriving with inadequate equipment.  The inquiry noted that the lack of sufficient equipment was not the fault of Cavan District Urban Council despite previous requests for a pump, the pumps were made in England and due to the on-going war it had not been possible to obtain one.  The inquiry concluded that despite this combination of inept action no-one was to blame for the loss of life.   Subsequent accounts outwith the official report allege that the Sisters sent the girls to get fully dressed before they evacuated, although this is not mentioned explicitly in these records witnesses were questioned on the state of dress of the children.  There were 72 girls in the Industrial school and 35 of them died along with porteress Margaret Smith.