The project to recover 'seven centuries of Irish history'

On June 30th 1922, a massive explosion ripped through Dublin’s Four Courts, after the Irish Free state national army opened fire on anti-treaty republicans occupying the building.

Inside the building, the old, dry files housed in the Public Record Office quickly caught fire. The blast sent a dramatic pillar of black smoke hundreds of metres into the air and flung files, books and scrolls high in the sky above the Liffey. Paper scraps and fragments fell across the city with some even landing in Howth, 10km away.

The explosion destroyed nearly seven hundred years of documented Irish history, including pre-famine 19-century census records and files detailing espionage, politics and the lives of ordinary Irish people.

The blast also marked the start of the Irish Civil War.

Three years ago, the Government launched Beyond 2022 – an international effort to try to recover the information lost in the fire and recreate a virtual treasury for future generations.

And this week, 175,000 documents have been made freely and publicly available online through the Virtual Record Treasury.

Today, on In The News, the online project reconstructing 700 years of Irish history.

Dr Ciarán Wallace, codirector of the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, discusses the implications of the information lost in the1922 Civil War blast and the efforts to reassemble the millions of words lost in the fire.

Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Declan Conlon. 

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