On Friday the stakeholders forum at PRONI (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni) met to hear an update on latest developments. The following is a summary - where catalogue numbers are quoted, in most cases these will be available on the eCatalogue from July.
Amongst the most recent deposits at PRONI are church records from Faughan Reformed Presbyterian Church in County Londonderry, including session books and committee records, as well as material concerning Reverend Donald J. Cairns and the Donegall Street Congregational Church in Belfast, including a copy of an unpublished history of the church. The papers of former Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon (some already at D4219, new material D4850) have also been deposited, most of which we were told are all handwritten. These include records from his political life, as well his degree certificate, other awards and personal papers.
A further acquisition is material from the Dowds-Reids family from Belfast, including a personal diary covering the period from 1834-1847, including a family tree (D4823).
PRONI is currently working with the Jewish community of Belfast via a National Lottery funded project, with three small collections under D4809. PRONI has also identified some Jewish holdings in its collections held concerning application records of Jewish refugees, mainly from Vienna 1938, available under COM/17/3(/1-/49), as part of the New Industries Act.
Lucy Reay has been appointed project leader on a Heritage Lottery Fund managed maritime project, cataloguing papers of Harry Madill, an amateur sailor and boat enthusiast. Harry collected over 4000 photos of traditional boats over a 30 years period, as well as line drawings of boats, interviews with builders, etc. The intent is to contact relatives as part of the project, and to host an exhibition in 2023. This project also involves the Ulster Transport Museum as a partner - you can read more about it at www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/page/ulster-transport-museum-cultra.
We had a brief update from Sarah Graham on PRONI's contribution to Beyond 2022 (https://beyond2022.ie), which will be revealing its first tranche of material on June 27th. This included a short video recently given at an event about conservation efforts in England and the island of Ireland between the various national archves involved, with the focus being a map of the Siege of Derry (D651) which has undergone extensive restoration work. One excellent update from this is that Beyond 2022 has apparently secured a further three years funding, beyond the initial three, although how the project will continue to develop is still under discussion. Another item to look forward to is a digitised version of an Armagh Crown and Peace Grand Jury presentment book, from 1758-1797 (ARM/4/1/1).
On the digitisation front, no new church records have been brought in from external churches this year, instead PRONI has turned to collections it already holds to work on instead. Twenty volumes have been selected, including Christ Church Cathedral in Lisburn, with baptisms from 1637 onwards, the oldest in PRONI's collections. Also included are Rosemary Street Non-Subscribing Presbyterian, with baptisms from 1757 and marriages from 1790 onwards, records from the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ballymoney (CR5/32/1/1), and records from Donaghedy.
On cataloguing, papers of the Ultach Trust from 1989-2015 will be made available on the catalogue in a bilingual format, in English and Irish (Gaeilge), with the first thirty to be uploaded from July. The Ultach Trust (Ulster Languages Traditions and Cultural Heritage) was an agency I had some dealings with at university in Bristol, when I produced a programme on the status of Irish language in Northern Ireland, with Aodán Mac Póilin being of immense help; I look forward to seeing what appears! Also being catalogued are papers of Boom Hall estate in Co. Londonderry.
The digitisation of UTV's archive continues, with rushes and outtakes from programme material from 1959-1969 now available to view via Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Archive at https://digitalfilmarchive.net. Some seven hundred videos are also on the cards for digitisation. It's worth noting that original UTV programmes as broadcast are sadly not held in Northern Ireland any more, they are now in England, with UTV having been acquired a while back by ITV.
We also had an update on the Collab Archive Initiative (https://collabarchive.org), a year long initiative with digital volunteering on five projects. Two have been completed - one on the Robetta Hewitt collection, involving a diary transcription, and an animated film production, the second on emigrant letters to and from Northern Ireland, which involved a collaboration with the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies (https://mellonmigrationcentre.com) based near Omagh. The volunteers looked at letters and materials that resonated with them, including a couple of diaries from 1891 from a young girl based in Switzerland, plus missionary journals. Further projects will include one on the RNIB, another involving volunteers from the 18-25 age group on how to make an exhibition on ethical lines, using asylum material, whilst the fifth project will focus on criminalisation and the LGBT community.
It was another great session, with lots clearly happening at PRONI. I'm hoping to pop in next month for the first time since the pandemic, it looks like things are fairly soon going to return to normal, or as close to its as we have seen in a very long time!
Don't forget that forthcoming events from PRONI are listed at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/talks-and-events-proni.
(With thanks to all at PRONI)
Chris
My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.
