31 August 2024
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie

Cork City Library will host the Virtual Treasury Roadshow next month – a chance for people to learn about their local history in this exciting new online resource

On Saturday 21 September the Virtual Treasury Roadshow will visit the City Library, Grand Parade to show digital records that help tell the story of Cork and its people from the 19th century back to medieval times.

When the Public Record Office of Ireland was destroyed during the Battle of the Four Courts in June 1922, seven centuries of Irish history went up in smoke. In recent years historians, archivists and computer scientists have been searching in archives and libraries, at home and abroad, hunting for any copies that can help replace these lost records.

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland was launched in June 2022, providing the public free online access to tens of thousands of replacement records, with over 50 million words of searchable text, collected from seventy partner archives and libraries around the globe.

Now, the Virtual Treasury team is coming to Cork to share the results of their research.

Helen McGonagle, Executive Librarian, Local Studies and Learning, will share further resources around local history. Following Ms. McGonagle’s introduction and a presentation from Brian McGee, Senior Archivist, Cork City and County Archives, Ciarán Wallace, Lynn Kilgallon, and Brian Gurrin from the Virtual Treasury will each present on various facets of the project. The roadshow visit will take place in the Museum from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm and again in a second session from 2 pm to 4 pm.

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland research program is supported by the Irish Government through funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under Project Ireland 2040. www.virtualtreasury.ie

The roadshow event is free and all are welcome. To book a place please visit https://bit.ly/3So5W79.