Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury is a new database and website that catalogues substitute sources for the records destroyed in the June 30, 1922, fire at Dublin’s Four Courts. The fire began as forces of the provisional Irish Free State government removed IRA rebels who had occupied the building since April 1922. This was the start of the Irish Civil War.

The new virtual Four Courts resurrects millions of words from the destroyed documents, now linked and reassembled from copies, transcripts, and other records scattered among archive and library collections in Ireland, Britain, and America. Here are the U.S.-based partners:

• American Conference for Irish Studies
• Historical Society of Philadelphia
• Houghton Library, Harvard University
• Huntington Library, San Marino, California
• Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas
• Library Company of Philadelphia
• Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City
• Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame

Watch a short video introduction of the project: