Articles – Page 7 – The National Archives of Ireland

1990 Annual Release: Department of the Taoiseach Northern Ireland Division

The Northern Ireland files are part of the main Central Registry series of the Department of the Taoiseach. They relate to the work of the Department in dealing with Northern Ireland and Anglo-Irish relations. The files released for 1990 include relations with Northern Ireland political parties, meetings between Taoiseach Charles Haughey and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, the Gibraltar shooting, and prison conditions in Britain and Northern Ireland.

A selection of files have been scanned and are available to view as PDF documents below. See here for the full list to the complete 1990 release.

2020/17/2 South Africa: religious, racial and political persecution
protests.

2020/17/5 Irish Republican Army: activities in Great Britain.

2020/17/8 Sinn Féin.

2020/17/10 Sinn Féin.

2020/17/11 European control of terrorism: Extradition (European
Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism) Act, 1987.

2020/17/12 European control of terrorism: Extradition (European
Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism) Act, 1987.

2020/17/15 Northern Ireland: relations with the SDLP [Social
Democratic Labour Party].

2020/17/16 Northern Ireland: relations with the SDLP [Social
Democratic Labour Party].

2020/17/17 Northern Ireland: relations with the Alliance Party.

2020/17/18 Northern Ireland: relations with Ulster Unionist Party
(UUP).

2020/17/19 British Army: activities in Northern Ireland.

2020/17/21 British Prevention of Terrorism Act, 1974.

2020/17/26 Complaints against the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary].

2020/17/28 Complaints against the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary].

2020/17/30 Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1978.

2020/17/31 Meetings between Taoiseach Charles Haughey and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

2020/17/32 Meetings between Taoiseach Charles Haughey and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

2020/17/34 IRA [Irish Republican Army] activities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

2020/17/36 IRA [Irish Republican Army] activities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

2020/17/38 Northern Ireland: proposals for settlement.

2020/17/4o Anglo-Irish Agreement, 1985: reports.

2020/17/43 Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

2020/17/44 Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

2020/17/45 Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

2020/17/46 Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

2020/17/47 Northern Ireland: Irish language.

2020/17/50 Prison conditions in Britain and Northern Ireland:
Birmingham Six and Guildford Four.

2020/17/52 Prison conditions in Britain and Northern Ireland:
Birmingham Six and Guildford Four.

2020/17/53 Arms smuggling: MV Eksund.

2020/17/54 Gibraltar shooting, 6 March 1988.

2020/17/55 Unionists and SDLP [Social Democratic and Labour Party] discussions with British government.

2020/17/56 Unionists and SDLP [Social Democratic and Labour Party] discussions with British government.

2020/17/58 Northern Ireland: correspondence and resolutions.

2020/17/59 Northern Ireland: correspondence and resolutions.

2020/17/60 Possible discussions between Irish government and
Unionists.

1990 Annual Release of Government Archives

This exhibition contains a selection of files released to the public in January 2021 under the National Archives Act, 1986. This Act legislates for the public release of 30 year old government records. Despite the closure of the National Archives building under current Level 5 restrictions, this exhibition provides selected access to a range of files, charting the significant developments of 1990, both nationally and internationally. These files cover a broad spectrum of events including Ireland’s European Council Presidency, German reunification, the release of Nelson Mandela and his subsequent visit to Ireland, and the beginnings of the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

Work is still being undertaken on the full transfer of files and will be uploaded for searching via our online catalogue as soon as possible. Physical access to all files will be available to researchers once the Reading Room re-opens.

TSCH/1/3 Department of the Taoiseach – Cabinet Minutes

2020/3 Department of the Taoiseach- Central Registry

2020/17 Department of the Taoiseach – Northern Ireland Division

2020/22 Department of Foreign Affairs: HQ

2020/23 Department of Foreign Affairs: Secretary’s Office

2020/26 Department of Foreign Affairs: Anglo-Irish Division

2020/1 Office of the Attorney General: Subject Related

1990 Annual Release: Department of Foreign Affairs Anglo-Irish Division

The Anglo Irish files are part of the Central Registry series dealing with Anglo-Irish relations and Northern Ireland. The files released for 1990 contain Anglo-Irish Section weekly briefs comprising of reports from Anglo-Irish Secretariat, Belfast, Embassy of Ireland to the UK, London, and Embassy of Ireland to the USA, Washington; meetings with politicians and religious leaders; and Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conferences.

A selection of files have been scanned and are available to view as PDF documents below. See here for the full list to the complete 1990 release.

2020/26/3 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 9 February 1990.

2020/26/5 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 7 September 1990.

2020/26/6 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 27 July 1990.

2020/26/8 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 21 December 1990.

2020/26/10 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 2 November 1990.

2020/26/16 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 01 June 1990.

2020/26/17 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 25 May 1990.

2020/26/18 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 18 May 1990.

2020/26/19 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 11 May 1990.

2020/26/20 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 4 May 1990.

2020/26/21 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 27 April 1990.

2020/26/22 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 9 March 1990.

2020/26/23 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 2 March 1990.

2020/26/24 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 23 February 1990.

2020/26/32 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 26 October 1990.

2020/26/33 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 9 November 1990.

2020/26/34 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 20 April 1990.

2020/26/35 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 22 June 1990.

2020/26/37 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 30 November 1990.

2020/26/39 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 23 March 1990.

2020/26/42 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief; 6 July 1990.

2020/26/45 Anglo-Irish Section weekly brief 06 April 1990.

1990 Annual Release: Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary’s Office

This series contains the files of the Office of the Secretary General, who oversees the management of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The files cover a variety of topics relating to the overall functioning of the Department. The files released for 1990 include the Gibraltar shootings, prisons in Northern Ireland, a review of the Anglo Irish Agreement, and Ireland’s Presidency of the European Council.

A selection of files have been scanned and are available to view as PDF documents below. See here for the full list to the complete 1990 release.

2020/23/3 Anglo-Irish matters, 1981.

2020/23/15 Fatal shooting of Aidan McAnespie at Aughnacloy, County Tyrone on 21 February 1988.

2020/23/16 Anglo-Irish meetings, March-December 1988.

2020/23/28 Gibraltar Shootings and witness statements by Nacional De Policia Gibraltar inquest.

2020/23/31 Secret Papers on the review of Anglo Irish Agreement 21 March 1989

2020/23/53 Secretary General’s papers relating to Anglo-Irish matters.

2020/23/56 Ireland’s Presidency of the European Council 1990.

1990 Annual Release: Department of Foreign Affairs Headquarters

The Headquarters files are part of the Central Registry series which deals with the work of various sections within the Department including protocol, consular, trade, legal, cultural and political. The files released for 1990 include reference to Nelson Mandela’s release, submarines in Irish waters, and relations between East Germany and the European Economic Community.

A selection of files have been scanned and are available to view as PDF documents below. See here for the full list to the complete 1990 release.

2020/22/6 South Africa; political developments including Nelson
Mandela’s release

2020/22/13 Nelson Mandela release and role in South Africa.

2020/22/41 Reports and statements of speeches made by German
Chancellor Kohl on the political situation in Federal Republic of Germany

2020/22/369 Submarines in Irish waters.

2020/22/372 Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, 1985 to 1991.

2020/22/452 Irish Presidency of the European Council 1990: political consultations with East Germany.

2020/22/617 East Germany and the EEC [European Economic
Community].

2020/22/618 East Germany and the EEC [European Economic
Community]; German unification.

2020/22/1006 Trilateral Commission [Japan, Western Europe and North America]:- Middle East Trilateral issues.

1990 Annual Release: Office of the Attorney General

The Attorney General is the legal adviser to the Government and the chief law officer of the State. Their office, called the Office of the Attorney General, is made up of a number of different offices namely: 1. The Attorney General’s Office containing the advisory counsel to the Attorney General; 2. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel to the Government containing the parliamentary counsel who draft legislation; 3. The Chief State Solicitor’s Office containing the solicitors representing the Attorney and the State; 4. The Statute Law Revision Unit which is responsible for statute law reform.

Series:

The Subject Related files are the legal files of the Office of the Attorney General. They contain a broad spectrum of documents consisting of queries received and advice given by the office of the Attorney General. The selection of newly released files contain an air accident inquest into a crash at Mulhuddart, County Dublin in 1988; the Sunningdale Conference; and a passenger train derailment at Claremorris, County Mayo.

A selection of files have been scanned and are available to view as PDF documents below. See here for the full list to the complete 1990 release.

2020/1/176 Air accident inquest: EI-BVV crash at Mulhuddart, County Dublin, 27 September 1988.

2020/1/480 Northern Ireland: Sunningdale Conference.

2020/1/488 Passenger Train Derailment at Claremorris [County Mayo], 24 September 1989.

Behind the Scenes: Talk-‘Collecting in a Crisis: Rapid Response Web and Social Media Archiving’

A collaborative webinar, organised by the National Archives and Digital Repository of Ireland was held online on Wednesday 2 December 2020. The online webinar focused on rapid response web and social media archiving and is the last in this public lecture series on digital archiving.

The event was well attended with over 140 people logging on to hear insights on a subject that is evolving for the profession today. Digital archivists have played a vital role in the effort to document the COVID-19 pandemic as it has developed online. These collaborative efforts with other disciplines are ensuring that records of the social, cultural, and economic impact of this crisis are preserved for future generations.

The first speaker of the evening was Nicola Bingham, Lead Curator for Web Archives at the British Library, who described the work of the UK Web Archive, a partnership of six UK Legal Deposit Libraries that has been collecting websites reflecting the UK perspective of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Nicola talked us through what was collected following stipulations from non-print Legal Deposit Regulations. She discussed the tools and technologies they used including bespoke software like Annotation, Curation Tool (ACT) and Conifer which produces high fidelity archival recordings of websites.

She concluded with some lessons learned including encouraging co-curation, which highlighted how important collaborative work is when responding in a rapidly evolving situation.

Valerie Love, Senior Digital Archivist at Alexander Turnbull Library (a division of the National Library of New Zealand), spoke next, giving an overview of the work that the Library’s Digital Collecting and Legal Deposit teams have been doing to collect and preserve public responses to the crisis on social media platforms.

Valerie spoke of setting up their Media Collecting Working Group which included Web Engineers, Technologists, Librarians and Digital Archivists. She talked us through their three phased approach in New Zealand beginning with a rapid response digital collecting from March to June, Outreach and Information Sharing from April to July and a collecting call for people to donate Covid-19 or Lockdown related material thereafter. She did stress that New Zealand’s experience of the crisis had guided this approach and they have lucky to have been back in the office since June to allow for more traditional collecting avenues to reopen.

Both speakers touched on the importance of diversity of the voices and material being collected and Nicola in particular spoke about the importance of being sensitive to ethical issues when collecting on a mass scale in a crisis. The scale of this endeavour was clear from both speakers and there was much to learn from both institutions.

For those unable to attend the webinar event, it was recorded and will be available to view on the Digital Repository of Ireland’s website shortly.

Patricia Fallon, Archivist

December Document of the Month

State paper signed by Charles I, May 1628. Ref. NAI/2006/79

On the accession of King Charles I in 1625, the wealthier Catholics who sat in the Irish House of Lords and the Irish House of Commons moved to have anti-Catholic legislation reformed.

By September 1626, there were 26 concessions being offered; they were around issues relating to the Church, legal title to land, freedom of trade, and the Oath of Supremacy. It was not a smooth negation. In April 1627, it was felt that the Irish would prefer to substitute a militia commanded by themselves rather than financing Charles’ standing army.

Finally, in May 1628, the Irish nobility agents appeared before the King’s council in London. In exchange for 51 ‘Graces,’ they agreed to provide £42, 626 12s.3d.per annum for three years.

This signed document details the breakdown and instructions about the size, composition, organisation command, payment, personnel, and army administration. See here for the complete document.

Behind the Scenes: Conservation of the Yeomanry Returns, 1798

Repairing fire damage on the Yeomanry Returns, County Carlow, 1798.

Conservation work progresses on the documents rescued after the fire which destroyed the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922. Learning how to conserve sheets of paper damaged by fire is an area where skills are developing.

One of the first sets of records to be worked on was sixty-six Yeomanry monthly returns from Co. Carlow.

This series of large printed documents were filled with details of the men who attended the barracks each month for training in 1798.

As the forms had been folded, they had survived in relatively good condition.

Each record was opened to inspect its condition; forty-four of the documents had no fire damage at all. The remaining forms had small areas of damage either long the edges of the page or central regions, which were brittle and had some text loss.

The surface of the forms were cleaned to remove any dirt, and then the sheets were humidified to reduce creases and the historic folds. After this, the documents were ready to be repaired. Four different types of adhesive-coated repair tissues were tested to find a compatible match. While these white tissues held the damaged areas secure, the visual result was not satisfying.

After exploring different options, a toned 7.3gsm Tengu Japanese tissue was selected. Small cut-to-size sections of the tissue were used and applied with wheat starch paste on both sides of the loss and damage areas. Due to the lightweight of the tissue, the short pieces, approximately 10mm-15 mm in length, were difficult to handle when pasted. As an alternative, dry sections of the tissue were placed on top of the damaged areas, and the glued pasted through the tissue; any excess was easily and quickly removed by blotting off.

The application of the tissue in these areas was successful. The natural-toned tissue was extremely complementary to the colour of the aged paper. The lightweight tissue meant that an application on each side of the scorched areas did not result in a thickening of the document, and only under close inspection could the tissue be seen. All the forms were flattened to enable clear image capture when digitised.

Zoe Reid, Conservator

Behind the Scenes: Yeomanry Returns, Carlow 1798

When Covid-19 forced the staff of the National Archives to work from home last March there was considerable effort put in to continue our work, albeit under much different circumstances.

No longer were we able to physically work with our collections, repair documents, list collections and ensure our researchers access. Each of our divisions responded to this with time and consideration.

I work in a division called Archives Storage and Preservation and for us it was a chance to look at access to collections. We have many inherited archive lists and finding aids and we have spent many months updating and transcribing these aids to ensure greater access when our researchers can return to our buildings.

Any collection work that can continue remotely has done so and I have recently been transcribing a collection of Yeomanry Returns for county Carlow from 1798. This collection comprises of 66 returns of Cavalry in the county and we were able to scan the collection so transcribing could be carried out remotely.

Carlow was one of several Irish counties that saw rebel action in May of 1798. The battle of Carlow took place on the 25^th of May 1798 and resulted in 600 rebels and civilian being killed by soldiers. These Cavalry returns give an interesting insight into the men who were in the army at the time. Each soldier has given their signature and it lists the commanding Officer. What is very interesting to note is the movement of soldiers to different regiments over the course of the year. The collection includes returns from Carlow town, Borris, Bagenalstown and Mount Leinster, Rathvilly, Hacketstown, Cloydagh and Killishin, and Leighlinbridge Cavalry. Each cavalry has surviving returns over a number of months.

This collection survived the explosion in the Four Courts in June 1922. It was recovered along with hundreds of other items and has been in storage for many decades since then fire. The collection has recently been opened and conserved under the Beyond 2022 Project. This really exciting project aims to launch an open-access, virtual reconstruction of the Record Treasury destroyed at Four Courts in 1922. Collections like this will once again take their place on the shelves of the Record Room, albeit in a virtual sense.

The recent history of these records, combined with the turbulent year of their origin make these Cavalry returns an interesting source for researchers of the time.

Patrica Fallon, Archivist