Archives and Records Association (Ireland)

Join us for the next lecture in the ARA Ireland series on Thursday 11th of June at 1pm - Teaching and Learning LGBT+ Irish History: Accessing the Past and Present

Dr Diarmuid Scully will explore legacies of oppression and how they may be challenged and overcome.

Until 1993, homosexuality was criminalised in Ireland. For centuries, Church, State, and public opinion shamed, silenced, and persecuted LGBT+ people for ‘the love that dare not speak its name.’ Despite transformational developments including marriage equality, we are still living with the legacies of that oppression. Looking at the historical record and how we can access it and share knowledge and understanding, this presentation will explore legacies of oppression and how they may be challenged and overcome.

Dr Diarmuid Scully is a Lecturer in the School of History, University College Cork. His interests are medieval cultural history and modern and contemporary LGBT+ history. Far apart in time, these two interests are connected by the theme of identities: how we construct personal, national, and sexual identities and how the ‘other’ is imagined in text and image. When Dr Diarmuid Scully began teaching LGBT+ history in 2018, his undergraduate module HI 2105 LGBT Identities in Modern Ireland became the first dedicated course on Irish LGBT+ history to be taught in any university on the island of Ireland.

Tickets are available via the ARA Ireland Eventbrite link ⬇
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/teaching-and-learning-lgbt-irish-history-accessing-the-past-and-present-tickets-1990548540268?aff=ebdsoporgprofile&_gl=1*1jmig8*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTA3NjU2Nzc2Mi4xNzgwNDg5Mzcz*_ga_TQVES5V6SH*czE3ODA0ODkzNzIkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODA0ODkzNzIkajYwJGwwJGgw

The Explore Your Archive theme for Meitheamh | June is | 🎨

Get involved and remember to tag 🏷️ Archives and Records Association (Ireland) & Explore Your Archive in your posts

Join us on Thursday, 28th of May, at 1pm for the next lecture in the ARA Ireland series - Self-archiving: The benefits of a Toolkit for Artists’ Archiving for diversity and inclusion in the collections at the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) by Ruth Hallinan.

NIVAL, based at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, collects stories of the development of art across the island of Ireland from 1900 to the present. NIVAL has developed a toolkit for artists’ archiving with practical templates and prompts to help artists of any level of experience or background. To ensure the accessibility of this toolkit, the document is free to download and will be supported by a series of free workshops for artists across Ireland in 2026. Through this process, NIVAL aims to challenge the disproportionate representations in its collections, ensuring that the plurality and cultural richness of contemporary Irish art and design is well documented and freely available for research.

The National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) is an initiative of NCAD in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland. Since 1997, NIVAL has become the foremost centre for the documentation of contemporary art and design in Ireland and holds arguably the largest public-access artist book collection in Ireland. Assistant Manager, Ruth Hallinan, has presented at various festivals and conferences including the Irish Book Trade conference, International Publishers Association conference, Art Libraries Society (ARLIS) conference, Dublin Book Festival and Dublin Art Book Fair. She was named as one of the 150 most influential people in publishing by The Bookseller in 2021 and 2022.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite - https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/self-archiving-the-benefits-of-a-toolkit-for-artists-tickets-1985517055963?aff=ebdsoporgprofile&_gl=1*mvhwgf*_up*MQ..*_ga*NTQ4MTYzNjYyLjE3NzgxNTg2MzA.*_ga_TQVES5V6SH*czE3NzgxNTg2MjkkbzEkZzAkdDE3NzgxNTg2MjkkajYwJGwwJGgw

✨ Job fairy ✨

Project Archivist, the Robert and Nelofer Fisk Archive and Library

This role, within the Library at Trinity College Dublin, will involve Project Management oversight of the archival description, research, and public presentation of the Robert and Nelofer Fisk Archive and Library. The post-holder will be experienced in archival project management, archival description and digital preservation, particularly pertaining to contemporary archives in hybrid formats. To be successful in the role, the Project Archivist will be required to develop a detailed project plan outlining timelines and tasks, particularly in relation to cross-department working. Knowledge of historical events of the mid-late twentieth century, up to the present day, (particularly relating to The Troubles in Northern Ireland and conflict in the Balkans and in the Middle East) will be highly valuable. Reading coherence of Arabic would be of benefit, in translating and interpreting source documents and international publications. As funding for the project is advanced, the post holder may be expected to line manage archival staff and will have routine interaction with other departments in the Library to fulfil the preservation (digital and analogue) of this collection. Therefore, experience in matrix management structures will be important.

Specific purpose contract, full-time.

Assistant Librarian 1 Salary Scale (€59,589- €90,543 per annum)
Closing date: 27 May 2026 12:00

Applications via the Trinity Recruitment Portal: https://www.tcd.ie/hr/vacancies/

A little bank holiday homework for you. This May we are looking at and on this day in 1914 County Surveyor, W.E. L'Estrange Duffin was dashing off his report on works. In his rush he has left me with a couple of questions about his handwriting. In his last paragraph he is writing about a retaining wall that needs repair following floods but I am not sure of the name of the Cove that he mentions it being near. At first I thought the wall "indecent in several places" but a closer look reads "undercut in several places". Any suggestions for the name of the Cove he mentions? Explore Your Archive Waterford City and County Libraries Waterford City and County Council

The Explore Your Archive theme for Bealtaine | May is |

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How to start a new archives service: experience of the CIÉ Group Archives by Dr Kevin Forkan.
Join the Irish Society for Archives for their upcoming lecture in Dublin City Library & Archive on Wednesday 6 May at 6pm.

Tickets are available ⬇️

How to start a new archives service: experience of the CIÉ Group Archives Learn how the CIÉ archives service was put in place to store the records held by the group, and future plans for the historic collections.

🚨 Attention members 🚨

Have you ever wanted to be a part of the ARA Ireland committee.

Three roles are up for grabs at the upcoming AGM on 30th April:
• Honorary Secretary
• Campaigns Officer
• Honorary Treasurer

This is a great opportunity to get involved, contribute to the profession, enhance your professional portfolio and widen your professional network!

If you’re interested in putting yourself forward, or would like to learn more about what’s involved, we’d love to hear from you.

Further information on each role is available on the ARA Ireland website - https://www.araireland.ie/news.

If you would like to submit an expression of interest, or have an informal chat, please feel free to get in touch at [email protected]
or contact our Chair, Niamh Ní Charra, directly at [email protected]