Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland

Article written by Joe Saunders

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) is a fantastic resource for all manner of researchers interested in Irish history. It launched in 2022 to great acclaim, with it being said that ‘Ireland pulled off a miracle’.[1]

The VRTI project is working to reconstruct the Public Record Office of Ireland, the archive which was destroyed in 1922 at the outset of the Irish Civil War. It is an open-access resource with the intention to provide access to material ‘freely and permanently’ online ‘to all those interested in Ireland’s deep history, at home and abroad.’[2] The research programme is ‘all-island’ and funded by the Government of Ireland under Project Ireland 2040 through the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport.[3]

VRTI combines a range of approaches to undertake its work, including historical research, archival conservation, and technical innovation. One key element is to provide a platform for digital resources shared by its partners, as well as sharing ‘newly translated, enhanced and contextualised’ historical sources from the collections to which partner organisations provide access.[4] 

Partnerships are critical to the work of the project and highlight the possibilities and benefits of international cross-institutional collaboration. Their expanding group of institutional research partners are from across Ireland and Britain, as well as Europe, North America and Australia. The five ‘Core Partners’ are the National Archives (NAI), Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), The National Archives UK (TNA), Irish Manuscripts Commission (IMC), and Trinity College Dublin Library.[5] The VRTI’s research programme is hosted by Trinity College Dublin.

The ongoing nature of the project means that VRTI is an ever-expanding resource, and it is growing on a phenomenal scale. For example, in June 2026, to mark the 104th anniversary of the fire which destroyed the Public Record Office, over 190,000 historical documents were added.[6] A look at some of the documents in this release indicates the range and scale of the documents in the Treasury: 

• Catholic Emancipation, 1825-1829: This curated collection traces the campaign led by Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Association, through thousands of digital images of letters, petitions, intelligence reports government correspondence.
• States of Independence, 1776-1783: Curated collection reveals the close, and sometimes surprising, connections between Ireland and the American Revolution.
• The Birth of Local History in Ireland: Curated collection gathers together attempts by early modern local history enthusiasts to document the customs, folklore, history and landscape of their localities.
• State Papers Ireland 1660 – 1715: Over 40 more volumes of State Papers and Signet Office records are being released. 
• Deeds of the Guild of St Anne, 1237 – 1778: 800 stories of the lives of ordinary men and women in Dublin, from arranging a funeral procession in 1345, or leaving bequests for prisoners in Dublin Castle in 1380, to mapping a property on Merchants Quay in 1739.

As well as working through collections of material the VRTI is organised thematically to assist researchers. For instance, with ‘Portals’ such as the Population Portal, including 50,000 names from the 19th-century census destroyed in 1922 and ‘Gold Seams’ like the Cromwellian Surveys which provide information researching land ownership in Ireland in the early modern period. 

To explore for yourself see here: Virtual Record treasury of Ireland, https://virtualtreasury.ie/

For more on this area, Chris Paton has published a number of books on Irish genealogy research including Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records (2023) and Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2026), both available from Pen & Sword Family History.

Pharos courses

Pharos Tutors also offer courses relating to Irish history tutored by Chris; Progressing Your Irish Research Online and Researching Irish Land Records.

Sources

[1] Chris Paton, ‘Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury launches’, Scottish GENES, https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/search?q=virtual+treasury
[2] ‘About the Virtual Treasury’, Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, https://virtualtreasury.ie/research-programme.
[3] ‘About the Virtual Treasury’, Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, https://virtualtreasury.ie/research-programme.
[4] ‘About the Virtual Treasury’, Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, https://virtualtreasury.ie/research-programme.
[5] ‘Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland’, School of Histories & Humanities- TCD, https://histories-humanities.tcd.ie/research/VirtualTreasury/.
[6] June 2026 New Releases’, Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, https://virtualtreasury.ie/2026-new-releases 

Image credits

• Nils Nedel, Ring of Kerry Lookout [Unsplash License]
• https://virtualtreasury.ie/
• Homepage- Virtual Record treasury of Ireland, https://virtualtreasury.ie/