In our latest Documentary on Newstalk, Producer Patricia Baker tells the story of the burning in 1922 of one of our greatest national treasures: the Public Records Office, and how a national archive has been built from those ashes; an archive that holds the knowledge of the history of the Irish State...in: Charred Remains
BROADCAST DATES: Charred Remains airs on Newstalk 106-108FM on Sunday February 3rd at 7am, Repeated Saturday February 9th at 9pm.
Charred Remains tells the story of the destruction in 1922 of Ireland’s Public Records Office. This office, located in the Four Courts, was a treasure trove of legal proceedings, ecclesiastical records, genealogical records, censuses, wills, and parish registers. The documentary also tells the story of the rebuilding of a National Archive. This has been a daunting task overseen by a small and dedicated team of archivists who undertook to rebuild a national cultural institution from the ashes. The National Archives is now a modern, innovative, organisation. Charred Remains explores how we have begun to take seriously preservation, access and the democratisation of the sources that constitute our collective past.
‘The archive (Public Records Office) was a living institution at the centre of Dublin. If you think of this magnificent building which went up in the 1860s on the Quays, in the Four Courts Complex, was commented on the press at the time as the most ambitious building project of the decade. It had a fabulous structure, beautiful granite exterior, and a well planned interior. It was staffed with really dedicated high profile archivists; the archival community was at the centre of intellectual life, powerful advocates for the importance of the historical records.’
Peter Crooks, Lecture in medieval history, Trinity College and principle investigator in Beyond 2022
‘The destruction of the Four Courts in 1922 is so dramatic and visually it is very powerful. A lot of people would be familiar with photographs of the smouldering Four Courts and those images tend to take precedent over an awareness or knowledge of what this meant and what was in that complex. There is a very evocative image of bits of archival fragments floating all over Dublin all the way out to Howth Head having come from the city and they are or were bits of the history of the people collectively.’
Diarmaid Ferriter, Historian, Professor of Modern History, University College Dublin
‘We like to blame the British for a lot of things, but it wasn't the British who blew up the Four Courts in 1922, it was us. Nothing can fill the gap ever, and that is something we have to live with. It is a very sad thing to reflect on, it has immense implication as to how we view our own past. It is also a terrible way to have become an Independent State, to have started a State by burning to the ground 800 years of Irish History. We are gradually coming to terms with the fact that our archives do matter, they have huge and important things to tell us about our history and we neglect them at our peril.’
Catriona Crowe, Archivist and Historian
‘After the fire the staff went in and gathered up what they could, and they put them in brown paper parcels, They didn't have the conservation skills at the time, but they knew they couldn't get rid of it, but they knew someday someone might. We knew as staff, and since I have been here for the last seventeen years, always aware that this is a collection that needed time and investment. The opportunity has come around now, as we are four years away from the one hundred anniversary of the destruction of the Public Records Office, and therefore we said lets see what we can do.’
Zoe Reid, Senior Conservationist in the National Archive of Ireland
‘There is vital information flowing between those charred and ruined pages.’
Catriona Crowe
‘Beyond 2022 is aiming to be a virtual reconstruction of the records lost in 1922. You have Irish diaspora around the world, there is also a documentary diaspora, Irish people in Australia, New Zealand, - they came to the public record office and they worked on research. They and their papers went off around the world, and we are in contact with archives and libraries around the world saying ‘show me all you have that was transcribed from the Public Records Office in Dublin’. We have made Woods Catalogue of the Public Records Office, produced in 1919, into a catalogue database. So we have made a catalogue of an empty archive. There is nothing on the shelves, but we know what should be on the shelves, and our job is to repopulate those as much as we can with virtual digital images, or links to external sources. So we have a resource free to the public to use, for the ordinary interested member of the pubic, and the specialist or the student researcher. We are not claiming to rebuild the archive, or replace everything, but we do know in some instance we have replaced maybe 80% of a lost volume, that is at the high end, but in other cases we will get bits or partial descriptions. But when you mass it all together, the sum total of it, will add hugely to our knowledge of how Ireland operated.’
Dr Ciaran Wallace, Historian, Trinity College, Researcher for Beyond 2022
‘And you would like to get back to that situation in 21st century Ireland that when we are commemorating, that we are also realising that those records must be again be at the centre of our national life and our intellectual culture.’
Peter Crooks, Lecturer in Medieval History, Trinity College & Principle Investigator of Beyond 2022
BROADCAST DATES: Charred Remains will air on Newstalk 106-108FM on Sunday February 3rd at 7am, Repeated Saturday February 9th at 9pm.
LISTEN TO PODCAST HERE:
CREDITS: Charred Remains is a Curious Broadcast production funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the television license fee.
Curious Broadcast is an arts-based broadcast studio that creates a space for innovation and cultural experimentation across all sectors. Curious Broadcast is based in Inchicore, Dublin 8.
The BAI Sound And Vision Scheme: Sound and Vision is a funding scheme for television and radio that provides funding in support of high quality programmes on Irish culture, heritage and experience, and programmes to improve adult literacy. The scheme is managed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
