Thanks to the collaboration with our partner archives and libraries in Ireland, Britain and North America, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland is delighted to release 175,000 additional historical records to the public. Among these, I would highlight our Census Gleanings Gold Seam which contains over 60,000 names from the pre- and post-Famine censuses, transcribed by genealogists before the Four Courts blaze of 1922 – now digitized and searchable for the first time. These, and all the records, are available for free to local history researchers, family historians, school pupils, tourists – anyone with an interest in Ireland’s deep history.
In total, the Virtual Treasury is now home to over 350,000 records – replacements for items lost in the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922. That amounts to 250 million words of searchable history from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.
Have a look at our updated home page: https://www.virtualtreasury.ie/
Our 2025 Showcase page lists the newly available materials: https://www.virtualtreasury.ie/2025-new-releases
Helpful new pathways and tools to guide users through seven centuries of collections:
● Population Portal: genealogical riches include 60,000 names from the 19th-century census destroyed in 1922.
● The Age of Revolution Portal: documents illustrate the drama of the 1798 Rebellion and Ireland’s links to the American Revolution.
● The Age of Conquest Portal: five million words of Anglo-Norman (1170-1500) Irish history translated into English.
● State Papers Ireland: (1660–1720) over 10 million words on governing Ireland in the dramatic years following Cromwell’s death.
● Knowledge Graph Explorer: a powerful new tool for identifying people and places, and the links between them, in the records.
Dr Ciarán Wallace
Co-Director
Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland