Dublin Castle Records 1798-1926

The Library has recently made a number of strategic purchases to support Teaching, Learning and Research across the Faculties and Departments of the University.  One of these new additions to our collections is the digitized archive of the Dublin Castle Records.

The Dublin Castle Records are the records of the British administration in Ireland and this collection covers the period from the rebellions of 1798 through the Nineteenth Century to the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War.   They include the records of the Royal Irish Constabulary with the monthly reports and statistical breakdowns from divisional police commissioners and county inspectors detailing Irish responses to British policy.   Also included are confidential papers and surveillance reports on outlawed nationalist organisations as well as dealing with broader and related themes such as labour disputes, land unrest in the West of Ireland and the militarization of Ulster Unionism.  The key figures from the movement for Irish independence are present as are Irish cultural figures who came into contact with the administration during this period.

The archive is of obvious interest to anyone studying Irish political history.  It is an essential record of the Irish Revolution increasing the ability of students to undertake effective research for course assignments, dissertations, and MA and PhD theses. Beyond this there is potential for those engaged in the study of policing methods, political activism or broader studies of the 19th Century and beyond.

Using the archive...

The archive is digitized from the collection held in the UK National Archives. It is divided into larger thematic documents with these documents being full-text searchable, although be aware that many of the handwritten documents will not take the full search. It is possible to download as PDFs sections of the text for work offline or in combination with other platforms. The Dublin Castle record is hosted on the wider Archives unbound platform and it is thus possible to combine searches with other archives held there.