74:‘to assemble and co-ordinate material to form the basis for the compilation of the history of the movement for Independence from the formation of the Irish Volunteers on 25 November 1913, to 11 July 1921.’ When the Bureau members had completed their mission, they oversaw the placing of the witness statements into 83 steel boxes, together with 66 annexes to witness statements, 54 collections of records of people who did not contribute statements, 178 collections of press cuttings, 12 voice recordings, 246 photographs and 322 bundles of original documents. In March 1959, the archive was locked in the strongroom in Government Buildings, not to be released to researchers and the general public until after the death of the last recipient of the military-service pension that had testified to the Bureau.
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existence. It records an era of sacrifice, bravery and vision, by those who played an active part in the irresistible final momentum to our national independence." According to
Margaret Mac Curtain, who comments on Professor F X. Martin, who "had glumly described the inaccessible Bureau of Military History as being cut off from the public by an ‘official iron curtain’ on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising, states "the definitive history of the 1916 Rising has yet to be written; these statements will be indispensable for those who seek to write it."
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TD, Minister for
Defence Michael Smith TD, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General C. Mangan, and a number of officers and soldiers of the Irish army. Also present were a number of historians and several children and grandchildren of witnesses. Bertie Ahern in his opening address said: "I am delighted to
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In the ten years subsequent to its establishment the project collected 1,773 witness statements totaling 35,000 pages, 334 sets of contemporary documents, 42 photographs, 12 voice recordings, 210 photographs of action sites of Easter Week, and a collection of press cuttings. The objective was then
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Barracks to mark an event of the utmost significance to the birth of our modern democracy." Commenting on the collection he continued "The Bureau of
Military History collection is truly a treasure trove of the personal memories and reflections of the men and women who nursed this country into
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Victor Laing, four civilian archivists were involved in processing the collection. (During processing the collection itself remained closed to the public). Copies of the
Statements (less the Contemporary Documents (CDs), still held at Cathal Brugha Barracks), were deposited at the
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A substantial part of Bureau of
Military History records have now been digitized and made available in searchable format. The online data, comprising 35 000 pages, 42 photographic collections and 12 voice recordings was officially launched by Arts Minister
38:. The rationale for the establishment of the Bureau was to give individuals who played an active part in the events which brought about Irish Independence a chance to record their own experiences. Those who took part included members of groups such as the
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Morrison, Eve ‘Witnessing the
Republic: the Ernie O’Malley Notebook Interviews and the Bureau of Military History Compared’ in Cormac K.H. O’Malley (ed) Modern Ireland and Revolution: Ernie O’Malley in Context (Newbridge: Irish Academic Press, 2013),
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Gkotzaridis, Evi. "Revisionist
Historians and the Modern Irish State: The Conflict between the Advisory Committee and the Bureau of Military History. 1946-1966." IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES. Vol.35, No.137, May 2006,
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On 11 March 2003, the Bureau of
Military History collection of Witness Statements was formally made available to the public. Beginning in 1999, under the direction of
284:(2011) pp: 26-29; discussion of sbjectivity in oral history, the reliability of individual memories, and state influence on the construction of collective memory.
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The materials were closed until 2003, when they were opened to public access. In 2012, a substantial portion of the materials were made available online.
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Morrison, Eve.‘The Bureau of
Military History’ in The Atlas of the Irish Revolution (Cork: Cork University Press, 2017),pp. 876–880
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Morrison, Eve. "The Bureau of
Military History and Female Republican Activism, 1913-1923." in Maryann Gialanella Valiulis, ed.,
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Ireland's 1916 Rising: Explorations of History-making, Commemoration & Heritage in Modern Times
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McGarry, Fearghal. "'Too many histories'? The Bureau of Military History and Easter 1916."
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where they can now be examined by all. In attendance at the hand-over were the
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Annie Ryan, Witnesses:Inside the Easter Rising, Liberties, 2005,
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Annie Ryan, Witnesses:Inside the Easter Rising, Liberties, 2005,
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Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890–1923
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277:(Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013), Historiography
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108:Digitisation and online access
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52:Irish Republican Brotherhood
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351:Military history of Ireland
204:Department of the Taoiseach
165:Defence Forces Headquarters
132:Defence Forces Headquarters
127:Department of the Taoiseach
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316:Bureau of Military History
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21:Bureau of Military History
341:Historiography of Ireland
170:18 November 2007 at the
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346:Military historiography
217:"Revolutionary archive"
69:Contemporary documents
16:Irish military archive
44:Irish Republican Army
42:and subsequently the
273:McCarthy, Mark, ed.
32:Minister for Defence
117:on 7 August 2012.
60:Irish Citizen Army
291:(2009) pp: 59-83.
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84:Commandant
252:11 August
226:11 August
93:Taoiseach
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168:Archived
121:Sources
54:(IRB),
46:(IRA),
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58:, the
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189:ISBN
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