Press Releases05 Nov 14

Education Minister Launches ‘Irish Archives’ Journal

The gathering of records and their provision to the public is a service to the nation, according to the Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan TD. The minister was commenting at the launch of the 2014 Journal of the Irish Society for Archives in the Deanery of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, yesterday evening (November 4).

This year’s volume of ‘Irish Archives’, edited by Susan Hood and Elizabeth McEvoy, is entirely devoted to the records of the Church of Ireland and Minister O’Sullivan said great credit was due to the RCB Library for gathering the records.

Referring to the journal’s cover photograph which features American First Lady, Michelle Obama and her daughters viewing the parish registers of Templeharry, County Offaly, the Minister stressed the importance of gathering records together.

‘We are all aware that there are parish records. But it is important that they are gathered together and made available to the public. Looking at the cover photo, we wouldn’t have had President Obama’s visit if it hadn’t been for archives because he would have been able to trace his family,’ she said. ‘The gathering of these records and the provision of them to people is a service to the nation. And as a national we rely on these archives because of the destruction of the Public Records Office in 1922.’

Commending the journal, the Minister suggested that it would make interesting reading, not just for Church of Ireland people, but for people who are interested in the evolution of modern Ireland.

Introducing the evening, the Chairman of the Irish Society for Archives, Dr Raymond Refaussé, said he was keen to impress on government the importance of what archivists do. He told the minister that the archive sector had not been immune to the cuts brought about by the recession and added that there were parts of the sector struggling to maintain a service.

Dr Refaussé explained that the Church of Ireland archives were widely used within church circles but received little attention outside the Church. He hoped that the journal and the Minister’s presence at its launch would help redress the imbalance.

Dr Susan Hood said that in devoting an entire edition of ‘Irish Archives’ to Church of Ireland records they were keen to provide a platform for the current generation of historians and archivists to reassess and reconstruct some of the complex aspects of Church of Ireland identity.

Dr Hood thanked the Minister for launching the journal and all those who contributed thought provoking articles and reviews.

The journal is produced in full colour and will be distributed to members and will be available at Eason’s bookshops nationwide or directly from the Society for Irish Archives: http://www.ucd.ie/archives/isa/isa-index.html

Content detail of Irish Archives volume 21:

The lead article by Dr Refaussé charts the evolutionary story of the creation of a Church of Ireland archive and establishment of the Representative Church Body Library (RCBL).

Next, Dr Miriam Moffitt (St Patrick’s College, Maynooth) acknowledges the strength of the RCB library lies in its holistic approach to historical documents.

This is followed by an essay by Dr Martin Maguire (Dundalk Institute of Technology) who explores the wide range of sources available to document social tensions within the Irish Protestant community from a class perspective.

In the Andrew Whiteside (Archivist and Historian) focuses on the large number of Church of Ireland secondary schools that had past pupils at the front during the First World War and how their memory was preserved by these institutions. Dr Robbie Roulston (UCD School of History and Archives) reassesses the Church of Ireland’s relationship with the Irish state in education using recently catalogued collections of papers.

A visual dimension is provided by Dr Michael O’Neill FSA (Architectural Historian) focusing on the architectural drawing collections in the RCBL and its efforts to digitize and make available the contents of these resources online. Susan Hemmens’ (Marsh’s Library Dublin) focuses on Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin’s 18th–century music archive of both manuscript and printed materials and draws attention to its uniquely rich informational context.

The volume concludes with co–editor Dr Susan Hood’s summary of the RCBL’s effort to reach out to the wider world by showcasing selected collections and updated lists online via its ‘Archive of the Month’ medium.

Photo caption:
Back row: Dr Raymond Refaussé, Dr Susan Hood, Dean Victor Stacey, Minister Jan O’Sullivan and Ms Elizabeth McEvoy. (photo: Lynn Glanville)