The Irish Record Commission (1810-1830) Medievalism and the Emergence of Archivism in Ireland

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the role and remit of the Irish Record Commission 1810-1830, a commission set up to look into the state of record repositories in Ireland and organise and make accessible the records there. This thesis demonstrates that the backgrounds and ideologies of the various sub-commissioners of the commission influenced the work of the Irish Record Commission. It focuses on various members of the commission (William Shaw Mason, Henry Monck Mason, Bartholomew Duhigg, William Betham, Edward Tresham, William Lynch, William Ball, James Hardiman, Edmund Hyde Hall and Edward Kelly Groves) from different religious confessional and radically different upbrings, who were prolific antiquarians of this time. By looking at the sub-commissioners' background, education, previous work history and historical writing, one can examine how these men conducted the work of the commission. Using a new historicist methodology, this thesis highlights the ideological impetus for archival research in Ireland before there was even such a thing as an archive. Their intense interest in the medieval record with which they worked is a huge focus of their writings and professional output. Consequently, the concept of `medievalism' and how the medieval period was used in contemporary arguments is a key part of this research. This work demonstrates that the Irish Record Commission is an understudied part of Irish archival and intellectual history. Not only is this an intellectual and administrative history, but this research draws attention to the vastly neglected output of the commission. If the transcripts, calendars, and facsimiles created by the commission were better known, they would open up new avenues of research that had been previously thought lost. By understanding the personality, connections and background of the members of the commission and those connected with the commission, one can better understand the reason for the path that the commission took to its untimely end in 1830. By focusing on their connections and previously understudied correspondence with the sub-commissioners, one can see the substantial impact that individuals had on the creation of archives in Ireland. This is as true for the beginning of the commission as it is for the end of the commission. By looking at the commission from when it was first called for in 1801 to the legacy of the commission up until the Public Records Act, Ireland, in 1867, this thesis hopes to expose continued patterns in archival development over the nineteenth century in Ireland.