Dr Ciarán Wallace gives talk to Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland

On Monday, 12 May, 2025 VRTI Deputy Director Dr Ciarán Wallace gave a talk to the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI), titled: Networks of knowledge: Creating and recreating the Public Record Office of Ireland.

For over half a century the Public Record Office of Ireland (PROI) was a centrepiece in Ireland’s busy network of scholarly research. The long campaign to establish a state archive involved antiquarians, academics and legal practitioners. Their combined efforts were eventually rewarded with a modern purpose-built premises, containing record collections of European significance. From its inception in 1867, the PROI benefitted from, and contributed to, the expertise of the research community. Its tragic destruction in 1922 left a chasm in Irish historical research. Since 2016 researchers in the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) have been collaborating with archivists, librarians and historians across Ireland and overseas, to digitally recreate – as far as possible – the lost collections. This recovery effort builds on the work of earlier enthusiasts, both amateur and academic, whose transcripts and copies are helping to repopulate the online archival shelves. This talk covered the work of the VRTI, and highlighted the essential role which networks of knowledge, past and present, have played in the research, and how digital networks can set new research horizons in the future.

The event was well-attended and more information about the RSAI can be found at www.rsai.ie.

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The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland research programme is supported by the Irish Government through funding from the Department of Arts, Culture, Communications, Media and Sport under Project Ireland 2040. www.virtualtreasury.ie