The Irish Archives Resource is an online database which contains searchable archival descriptions held in Irish Archive Services. It does not hold any archives or records but provides a means to search archival descriptions from various contributing institutions.
To contact an Archive Service you can use the links page where you will find the web addresses for all contributing Archive Services.
At the top of each archival description you will find the name of the Archive Service in which the collection is held. The link to the website of the archive service is also provided at the bottom of the page.
To obtain copies of archives you will need to contact the relevant Archive Service directly. Please note that some archives and records will be subject to copyright legislation.
To use an image in a publication you will need to contact the Archive Service that holds it and get their permission to reproduce the image.
There are two ways of searching archival collections in the Irish Archives Resource:
Simple search and Advanced search.
Simple Search:
On the home page there is a search box. Using keyword terms to search you can locate information on collections of archives relating to places, organisations, people or specific periods of time, for example Waterford; famine, Guinness etc.
Advanced Search:
It is possible to search by:
- Keyword
- Collection Type – Choose from a Drop Down List of collection types e.g. Archaeology; Business…
- County – Please note the County relates to the content of the records and not the physical location of the collection.
- Date Range
- Repository Name: You can search for all collection entries from a specific repository
- Collection Reference Number: if you know the collection reference code you can search by this information
If there are no records in the database that match your search criteria you are returned to the Search page. A line of text in red informs you that no records were found. The Irish Archives Resource does not include content from all Irish Archive Services. Your search may be too specific and it may be better to search using more general terms.
Yes, contributors are regularly submitting new collections to the portal.