It was great to finally get a chance again this morning to attend the stakeholder forum meeting of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/campaigns/public-record-office-northern-ireland-proni), the first time in months due to my recent Gaelic studies in Glasgow unfortunately clashing with recent meetings. As always, there is plenty happening in Northern Ireland's national archive, with the following some of the key recent and future developments that may be of interest to family historians.
Strategic review
Following a recent strategic review of PRONI's services and set-up, five new posts have been proposed for the archive, which will soon be advertised and filled. These include a director, deputy director, and heads of communications/marketing, outreach, and digital. Some further posts will also be advertised in support of services.
Cataloguing
Lorraine Bourke spoke about a new archive collaboration project with the Nerve Centre, which has attracted significant project funding, and which is entitled Now You're Talking. It will catalogue the papers, manuscripts, scripts and other documents relating to two men who spent a considerable amount of time in their lives collecting folklore relating to the north – Sam Hannah Bell, novelist, theatre historian, and BBC features producer, and Michael J. Murphy, who spent forty years as a folklorist who worked for the Irish Folklore Commission, and gathered stories, anecdotes, words and phrases, from almost every part of Ulster (with the exception of Donegal). Both came from different traditions on the island, but regularly corresponded with each other. Murphy's papers are being catalogued under D4642, whilst Bell's materials are being catalogued under D4643. There is also additional work being carried out beyond cataloguing to share the riches found in the collections, including a monthly blog and v-log, with entries already available via PRONI's social networks.
Also on the cataloguing front, at the next update in August over a century's worth of Church of Ireland records from Ballymacarrett will be made available on-site at PRONI.
- 102 parish volumes and 170 magazines from St Patrick's from 1827 onwards will be accessible under CR1/122;
- 21 volumes for St. Christopher's will be made available from 1932 onwards at CR1/141;
- 55 volumes from 1922 onwards for St. Martin's will be available under CR1/142.
Also available both online and on-site through the catalogue will be 3000 photographs taken by Albert McAlpine of Belfast mainly documenting East Belfast life in the 20th century, but also other parts of Belfast and the island of Ireland. These have all been meticulously indexed, with the collection available under D4977.
A further set of photographs supplied by the Diocese of Down and Connor, from glass plate negatives dating from 1890-1940, will be available on-site only under DIORC/4/1. All the buildings imaged have been identified, and most of the individuals featured.
Cataloguing work also continues on the Chichester papers, concering the family from Shane's Lodge, Chichester, Co. Down. Amongst the latest work is cataloguing and digitisation of 100 glass plate negatives, which will be accessible on-site and online under D4563.
A milestone has also been reached on the cataloguing of deposits to the archive, with catalogue number D5000 hosting papers of the Bangor Amateur Operatic Society, marking the 5000th deposit to the archive.
Catalogue
With regards to on-site access to records, the former Calm based catalogue was finally switched off two months ago. There has unfortunately been a slight issue with its Axiell based replacement, meaning that at present the search rooms are using the eCatalogue (the version available from home), and ordering of materials is being carried out on-site on a manual basis. This is a temporary measure, with no problems currently reported, and it is hoped that the new system will come into operation in early summer at the archive.
Opening hours
For the rest of the financial year at PRONI, there will be Saturday opening at the archive from 10.00am-2.00pm on every first Saturday of the month, and late night opening at PRONI until 7.15pm on the third Thursday of every month (further details at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/getting-proni-and-opening-hours).
Themes
From April of this year, and until 2026, PRONI's annual theme is Celebrating Creativity and Innovation, with various programmes in place. From July to September, a series of history of photography workshops will commence, led by PRONI's reprographics team, looking at the different types of photography since the 1840s to the present day, and featuring examples from the archive's photographic collections. There will also be some late evening and Saturday sessions on book-binding and other skills to make your research look like archive material.
For next year, PRONI is considering a 'collection day' for people to visit the archive with interesting items, and to learn how to conserve them better, whilst plans are also in place for PRONI's next themed year, which will look at Our Place in the World, and the story of the Irish diaspora and emigration.
Plans are also in place for PRONI to help commemorate the US 250 celebrations, which will include a publication similar to the recent PRONI 100 book, and which will feature about seventy documents from the archive's collections to help tell the story of Ulster's involvement in the history of the USA.
Accreditation
In other news, congratulations to PRONI on being re-accredited as an archive. It first gained accreditation six years ago, which has to be renewed every six years, which the archive has just completed.
New PRONI website
A new public website is being developed for PRONI, to replace the current offering which has not been signicantly updated in many years.
Forthcoming events:
Next week at PRONI, in partnership with heritage body HERONI, there will be an on-site exhibition looking at Irish high crosses.
On June 12th PRONI will be doing a workshop at Warrenpoint Library to talk about its work.
On August 23rd there will be a Family History Day at PRONI in partnership with the NIFHS, with stalls and talks on-site. The archive's canteen will also be open throughout.
We also heard briefly from Martin McDowell and Ann Robinson from NIFHS, who mentioned that there will also be an Ask the Experts Day at Ulster University on June 14th, and the society's new website has also now been launched, although an on-site search engine for this is not yet available in this soft-launch phase, but will be coming soon. Further details via the website
(With thanks to PRONI's Stephen Scarth, Lorraine Bourke, and Lynsey Gillespie, and other attendees)
Chris
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