The new Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland website has now been launched at https:// virtualtreasury.ie, a valiant attempt to try to reconstruct and retrieve much of the material lost in the devastating fire at the Public Record Office (PRO) in Dublin in 1922, during the opening salvos of the Irish Civil War. There has a been a great deal of excitement about what could be produced by this project, and now that it is live, we can see that there is much to applaud from such a novel and worldwide collaboration, but equally, still a great deal to lament from the tragic loss of Ireland’s historical record.
To read about the historical period leading up to the Four Courts Fire and the reasons why the Virtual Treasury project is valuable see David Ryan’s article, FT September 2022
Take a tour
There are several aspects to the new platform which will be of interest to the genealogist.
• The first is a ‘Virtual Tour of the Public Record Office of Ireland’, accessible from the ‘Virtual Reality Visit’ button at the top right corner of the home page.
• Clicking on this takes you to a new page with an interactive digital model of the original building, accompanied by an illustrated history tour of the events leading to its destruction.
• You can ‘walk’ through this building and get a sense of its former magnificence, as well interact with its records in a real time environment, which can be accessed through links where they were ‘stored’ initially.
• Whilst this is a fun way to engage, I have
