Many genealogists with Irish ancestry are familiar with the fate of the Public Record Office of Dunbin. On 30 June 1922, Office was destroyed in a fire during the Irish Civil War. Centuries of Irish historical records were lost, including many of those relating to family history.
In 2022, to mark the 100th anniversary of the fire, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) was launched – an ambitious attempt to reconstruct the Public Record Office of Ireland with digitised copies of Irish documents from around the world. The treasury is an ever-growing, open-access resource, freely and permanently available online to all those interested in Ireland’s deep history, at home and abroad.
On 30 June 2025, to mark its third anniversary, the VRTI announced that it had added a major new collection of records, including 60,000 19th-century census records.
A spokesperson for the VRTI has said that although some of the new census records on the VRTI include the census fragments already available on the National Archives of Ireland’s website, the majority were new collections, from transcripts and duplicates from archives and other cultural institutions across the island of Ireland and around the world.
Dr Peter Crooks of Trinity College Dublin, Academic Director of the VRTI, said: “What we have uncovered after years of painstaking archival work will help families across the world trace their story deeper into the Irish past.”
So take a look at the VRTI and see what records they may have to help you discover more about your Irish ancestors.
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