The Irish Archives Resource says their site will help researchers “to search for publicly accessible archival collections that are located in Ireland.” There are five tabs to choose for information on the site: Search, About Us, Advice, Family History/Genealogy, Feedback and Links.
The Advice page helps you to get the best results from your searches in the Irish Archives Resource. You can search by keyword, dates, geographical area, collection type or name of repository and collection reference number.
If you click the “Search Results” button at the bottom of the search page then you get a complete listing of the resources catalogued on the site. When I did this I got 214 results and there were twenty results per page. Some of the results referred to a specific item and some to a collection.
There is one reference to a will for Annie Barnacle the mother of Nora Barnacle. Nora was the wife of James Joyce. Annie died in1940 and the will was lost. As the family tried to solve the problem letters were sent back and forth. These letters are the heart of the collection.
There are some collections relating to estates in Ireland. The date range of the collections starts in the 1700s and goes to the current day.
This does not cover all the collections to be found in repositories in Ireland but it does provide a good starting point when your research takes you to Ireland. There are links to the original repository at the end of each collection description.
The Irish Archives Resource catalogue is small at the moment. There are eighteen contributing repositories. When more information is added it will be a wonderful resource. Do not wait until more repositories are added to the Irish Archives Resource, go in now and see what you can find. You might be surprised.
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