Irish History Research Resource List
A master list of resources for researching Irish history that I hope to update regularly. Still under construction.
- Biographies & Directories
- Bibliography
- Digitised Primary Sources
- Archives
- General Research Tools
- General Websites of Interest
- Podcasts & Radio
Biographies & Directories
- portraidi A directory of Irish language writers currently working.
- Dictionary of Irish Biography A free and open access dictionary of biography.
Bibliography
- Bibliography of British and Irish History Large and regularly maintained bibliography, not open access.
- Irish History Online A large and free bibliography of Irish history as of 2025 maintained by volunteers.
Digitised Primary Sources
- Digital Repository Ireland A digital repository with a wide range of accessable primary source collections related to Irish history.
- Divided Society A large collection of material related to the conflict in the north of Ireland.
- Europeana A Europe wide archive of digitised materials with many items related to Ireland.
- Irish Newspaper Archive A large archive of digitised newspapers, not open access.
- Irish Script on Screen A digital repository of Irish manuscripts.
- CELT Corpus of Electronic Texts A large database of searchable texts from many periods in variety of languages, with translations for many. A great range of texts in easily workable formats
- National Archives: Census of Ireland Digitised versions of the census of Ireland 1901/1911 and Census fragments and substitutes, 1821-51.
- oireachtas.ie The official site of the Oireachtas, has transcribed and searchable Dáil and Seanad records.
- Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland A digital reconstruction of the destroyed Public Record Office of Ireland with high quality digitisations of material held elsewhere.
- Irish Left Archive Digitised archive of materials related to the modern Irish left from the 20th century to the present day.
- Historical Irish Corpus A searchable corpus of Irish language material from 1600 - 1926 produced by the Royal Irish Academy
- dippam Acronym for Documenting Ireland: Parliament, People and Migration. A rich and well digitised online archive comprise three different projects; Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland, Irish Emigration Database and Voices of Migration and Return.
- Irish Republican Digital Archive Archive of republican material, the vast majority of which from the latter half of the 20th century.
Archives
- Irish Archives Resource An online service to find and search archive records from across Ireland.
- Archives Portal Europe Searchable content from archives over Europe.
- Consortium of European Research Libraries Resources Has various online listings and bibliographies related to European history.
- Irish Architectural Archive Material relating to architecture, some digitised.
- National Archives of Ireland A large and wide ranging archive with many government records, has digitised census records.
- National Library of Ireland A legal deposit library with a vast array of archival material and access to secondary sources both online and in physical copies, free membership.
- The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) An archive with many online resources, recordings and interviews.
- The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
General Research Tools
- OAPEN An online library of free open access academic books, many about Irish history.
- Directory of Open Access Books A large directory of open access books. Most not related to Irish History.
- The Online Books Page Maintained by the University of Pennsylvania, a large catalogue of books freely available online.
- The Programming Historian A great resource with loads of easy to follow guides for digital humanities projects and techniques.
- Doing History with Zotero and Obsidian A detailed guide to a useful workflow for history research.
General Websites of Interest
- Archiseek Online catalogue of Irish Architecture.
- Century Ireland Website produced by RTE for the decade of centenaries, with many articles and videos relating to the revolutionary period.
Podcasts & Radio
- Three Castles Burning A podcast of Dublin history by Donal Fallon.
- The History Show A radio show on Irish history produced by RTE radio 1.