The Festival of History, organised by Dublin City Library and Archive, takes place annually in September–October and the Irish Manuscripts Commission (IMC) has been taking part since 2020. You can see previous contributions to the Festival from IMC editors (2020) and members (2021) on our You Tube channel here.
This year will be the first time IMC has been able to run an in-person event and we are pretty excited about that! On Saturday 8 October from 11 am to 1 pm members of the Commission with particular expertise in 17th century sources and genealogy will host a workshop to explore the Books of Survey and Distribution in the newly launched Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI). During the workshop, we will compare the results of using keyword searches with searching the Treasury using its archival hierarchy. We will look at the manuscript volumes of the Books of Survey and Distribution and view them alongside transcripts of the text and associated digital content including Down Survey maps. Lastly we will look at the results of searches in the context of the other 17th-century sources that make up the Cromwellian Surveys Gold Seam in the VRTI.
Participation is limited to 50 people. If you would like to attend the workshop, please register on our Eventbrite page. It’s entirely free, we just need to know how many people will attend!
If you are interested in reading more about the VRTI and searching its contents link here. Read about the Festival of History and browse other events on during September and October here.