Watch: Archives, Access & Human Rights

On the 13th of June 2024, the Historical Studies Committee held a one-day conference exploring public and private archives in Ireland. Speakers included archivists, historians, civil servants, and survivor-focused human rights experts.

Archives, both public and private, are essential to both historical inquiry and to individuals whose identities and pasts are revealed by them. At this event, we explored  two issues: access to official records, generated by government agencies and local authorities; and access to records consulted (many of them the property of religious congregations) and created by the various bodies which investigated Industrial Schools, Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. The latter records are supposed to be eventually located in the proposed Centre for Research and Remembrance at Sean McDermott St., Dublin.

The event was supported by Boston College, the ARINS Project, Justice for Magdalenes Research, the Irish Centre for Human Rights, the Irish Committee for Historical Sciences and the Archives and Records Association. A post-event report will be published later this year.

Morning sessions: Public Records in Ireland and access to them

1. Welcome & Introduction – Catriona Crowe MRIA

2. Access to Local Authority Records in Donegal
Niamh Brennan, Archivist, Donegal County Council
Chair: Catriona Crowe MRIA

3. Archival Sources for the History of the Department of Finance
Ciaran M. Casey, author of The Irish Department of Finance, 1959-1999
Chair: Felix M. Larkin, FRHistS, former public servant

4. Access to Local Authority, Prison and Mental Health Records
Maria Luddy, Professor Emerita, University of Warwick
Chair: Lisa Godson, cultural historian, NCAD

5. Discussion and Q+A with speakers
Moderator: Diarmaid Ferriter MRIA, Professor of Modern Irish History, UCD

Afternoon sessions: Records of Inquiries into Industrial Schools, Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes

6. Institutional Archives and Human Rights Implications of Lack of Access to them
Maeve O’Rourke MYAI, Clann Project and Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway
Chair: James Smith, Professor of English & Irish Studies at Boston College, and author of Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment

7. Archival Aspects of the Northern Ireland Truth Recovery Programme
Joy Carey, Project Manager, Records of Mother and Baby Institutions, PRONI
Wesley Geddis, Acting Head of Records Management, Cataloguing and Access, PRONI
Chair: Professor Leanne McCormick, Co-Chair of the Northern Ireland Truth Recovery Panel

8. Archival Preparations for the National Centre for Research and Remembrance
Laura McGarrigle, Assistant Secretary, Adoption, Mother and Baby Homes and Research Division in the Dept. of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
Chair: Catriona Crowe MRIA

9. The Archival Preservation of Survivor Testimony
Claire McGettrick, born Lorraine Hughes, Adopted Person and Co-Founder, Clann Project
Chair: Patricia Carey, Special Advocate for Survivors

10. Discussion and Q+A with speakers
Moderator: Fintan O’Toole MRIA, Irish Times journalist and author of We Don’t Know Ourselves