Digital revolution: Civil War papers to go live
PERSONAL papers belonging to some of the key figures that shaped Ireland’s revolutionary period and Civil War are to be digitised as part of a €2m scheme.
Culture Minister Heather Humphreys will today announce funding for the National Library of Ireland’s project entitled ‘Towards a Republic’.
It will see the cataloguing and digitisation of documents marking the second phase of the Decade of Commemorations from 1917 to 1923.
Among those set to feature are John Devoy, Arthur Griffith, Rosamond Jacob, Annie O’Farrelly, John Redmond and the Sheehy Skeffingtons.
The digitised papers will be made openly available online on a phased basis between 2018 and 2023. They will join photographs from the period that have been donated to the National Library by the Irish Independent.
According to the minister, the archives will reveal the social, cultural and political context of the period, enabling everyone to explore key moments such as suffrage, the 1918 election, the first and subsequent Dáils, the Peace Conference, the Anglo-Irish War, the Treaty negotiations, and the Civil War.
“The importance of digitisation was really underlined during the 2016 centenary year, when a number of our national cultural institutions made a wealth of material available online for the first time,” Ms Humphreys said.
Further announcements on projects approved for funding will be made in the coming weeks.