‘A permanent house for local archives’: a case study of a community’s archives in County Offaly^*

Abstract

Local authority archives services are a vital component in the development of the local history or the collective memory of a region. This article will examine communities that do not have ready access to local records. It will also examine the alternative solutions sought by such communities when preserving their documentary heritage and the importance of establishing a physical collection of archives in a locality. Despite legislation stipulating that each local authority must preserve and make available its archives, Ireland does not yet have a uniform local authority archive service model. Many city and county councils throughout the country have neither professional archivists nor standard archives services, leaving the preservation of archival materials in certain local authorities to national institutions, historical societies or private collectors. This article presents findings from a case study in 2014 of one such local authority, County Offaly. The article begins by presenting the theories in archival literature in relation to archives, community and memory. The article proceeds to an analysis of the local authority archive sector in Ireland, before presenting the perspectives of various stakeholders in County Offaly using data gathered from interviews and questionnaires. The study concludes that in the absence of local authority archives services, community archives will emerge to collect and preserve the documentary heritage of their regions.

Keywords:

• Local authority archives
• community archives
• community memory

Acknowledgements

This article is adapted from a dissertation undertaken for the MA in Archives and Records Management, University College Dublin, 2014. I would like to thank Dr Elizabeth Mullins for her encouragement and advice while preparing this article. I would also like to thank the participants in the case study who gave so generously of their time and resources: Management and staff of Tullamore Central Library, officers and staff of Offaly County Council, management and staff of Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society, and management and staff of Wexford County Archive. Finally, in a noteworthy development, since the completion of the research and in some way prompted by it, both Offaly County Council and Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society have made significant inroads into developing their respective archives services, ranging from improving environmental and storage conditions to initiating major cataloguing projects. The commitment from both repositories to their future development is commendable and will hopefully translate into an improved service for users of archives in County Offaly.

Notes

1. Bastian, Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost, 87.

2. Ibid., 6.

3. Currently, 15 out of 31 Irish local authorities employ a total of 17 archivists, leaving over half of local authorities without a professionally staffed service.

4. Local Government Act (1994), Section 65, Subsection 1.

5. Local Authority Archivists Group, Local Authority Archives in Ireland, 38.

6. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives,” 167.

7. The interviews and fieldwork took place between January and May 2014.

8. See Flinn, Stevens, and Shepherd, “Whose Memories, Whose Archives?” 71–86; Flinn and Stevens, “Independent and Community Archives in the UK,” 3–27; and Stevens, Flinn, and Shepherd, “New Frameworks for Community Engagement,” 59–76.

9. Stevens, Flinn, and Shepherd, “New Frameworks for Community Engagement,” 60 (emphasis from original).

10. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives,” 152.

11. Flinn and Stevens, “It’s noh mistri, wi mekin histri,” 5.

12. Flinn, “Independent Community Archives and Community-generated Content,” 42.

13. Shepherd, “Diversity of Provision,” 125.

14. Gray, “Who’s that knocking on our door?” 5.

15. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives,” 168.

16. Bastian, Owning Memory, 47.

17. Bastian, “Reading Colonial Records through an Archival Lens,” 267–84.

18. Bastian, Owning Memory, 87.

19. Flinn, “Archival Activism,” 9.

20. Bastian, Owning Memory, 86. Archival literature has been investigating the concept of memory with increasing frequency. For a comprehensive overview of the concept of memory in archives between 1980 and 2010 see Jacobsen, Punzalan, and Hedstrom, “Invoking ‘collective memory’,” 217–51. Influential texts include: Taylor, “The Collective Memory,” 118–30; Schwartz and Cook, “Archives, Records and Power,” 1–19; Cook, “We are What We Keep,” 181–2; Harris, “The Archival Sliver,” 63–86; and Cook, “Evidence, Memory, Identity and Community,” 95–120.

21. Duranti, “Archives as a Place,” 254.

22. Ketelaar, “Archives as Spaces of Memory,” 21.

23. Ketelaar, “Muniments and Monuments,” 343.

24. Bastian, “In a ‘house of memory’,” 9.

25. See note 23 above.

26. Cook, “We are What We Keep,” 173–89.

27. See note 12 above.

28. See note 23 above.

29. Harris, “Genres of the Trace,” 147–52.

30. Vol 34: 1 of Archives and Records (2013) was a special issue subtitled ‘The local record office in the UK: contexts, evolution and development’. Similarly, Irish Archives dedicated its 2011 volume (Vol 18) to an overview of the development of the local authority archives sector since 1971.

31. Shepherd, “Diversity of Provision,” 95–127.

32. Proctor and Shepherd, “Writing the Record Office,” 1–8.

33. Shepherd, “Diversity in Provision,” 96–102; and Proctor and Shepherd, “Writing the Record Office,” 4–5.

34. Donnelly, “An Overview of the Development of Local Government,” 3–20.

35. In 2001, Section 80 of the Local Government Act superseded the 1994 Act but with no change to the legislation governing archives.

36. Local Government Act (1994), Section 65, Subsection 1.

37. Department of the Environment, Report of the Steering Group on Local Authority Records, 1996

38. Kilkenny City is notable in this regard.

39. Local Authority Archivists’ Group, Local Authority Archives in Ireland, 41.

40. Local Government Management Services Board, National Retention Policy for Local Authority Records, (2002).

41. Quinn, “Introduction,” 3.

42. Doran, Moore, and Rothwell, “New Beginnings,” 100–14. In this, an overview of three geographically analogous local authority archives published in 2006, each archivist holds a different position within the local authority, reporting variously to county librarians and county secretaries, with archives and records management services inconsistently spilt between the directorate for corporate affairs and the directorate for community and enterprise.

43. Holland, “From Louisburgh to Ladismith,” 139. For instance, and pertinent to this study, between 1998 and 2002, a single archivist was appointed to the local authorities of neighbouring counties, Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath, spending three months of each year in each local authority.

44. Throughout this section, references to Offaly County Library may be abbreviated to ‘the Library’ and likewise, references to Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society may be abbreviated to ‘Offaly History’ as it is more commonly known, or ‘the Society’, depending on the context

45. Department of the Environment, Report of the Steering Group on Local Authority Records, 1996.

46. In 1998, an archivist was recruited to serve the Mid-East region, comprising of counties Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath from 1998 to 2002. Following her departure, another contract archivist was recruited between 2002 and 2006, this time shared with just County Laois. Since this contract ended, there have been no further appointments to the role of County Archivist in Offaly. It suggests, perhaps, that employment of an archivist is not seen as a priority at higher management level, and will only be undertaken if the cost is borne by one, two or more neighbouring counties.

47. This contract expired in 2006 and Offaly has not sought to fill this position since then. However, after the data collecting period of this research, it has employed a part-time freelance archivist with Heritage Council funding to assist in cataloguing a backlogue of privately donated papers.

48. See Murphy, Coughlan, and Doran, Grand Jury to Aras an Chontae, 2003.

49. Quinn, “Introduction,” 3.

50. Shepherd, “Diversity of Provision,” 122.

51. Doran, Moore, and Rothwell, “Archival Developments in Waterford and Wexford,” 100–14.

52. Stevens, “Local authority Archives,” 87.

53. Shepherd, “Diversity of Provision,” 122.

54. Since completion of this research, Offaly County Council has embarked on a major cataloguing project and has also conserved at-risk documents with external funding.

55. Participant interview transcript, 02/05/2014.

56. McHugh and Barber, “Yorkshire Archives and a League of Gentlemen,” 67–83; and Wishart, “A History of Shetland Archives,” 84–94.

57. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives,” 167; and Bastian, Owning Memory, 86.

58. Since completion of this research, OHAS has commenced a large-scale cataloguing project and has purchased a new building to house its archival collections.

59. See www.facebook.com/offalyhistory, www.twitter.com/offalyhistory, and www.youtube.com/user/OHASonline.

60. Bastian, “Discovering the Provenance of Place,” 9.

61. Ketelaar, “Muniments and Monuments,” 343.

62. Jones, “Archives and Museums – Threat or Opportunity?” 31.

63. See note 20 above.

64. Bastian, Owning Memory, 86.

65. Flinn, “Community History, Community Archives,” 167.

66. Ibid.

67. Bastian, “Discovering the Provenance of Place,” 9.

68. Ketelaar, “Spaces of Memory,” 104.

69. Ketelaar, “Muniments to Monuments,” 343.

70. For example, the Hull History Centre is comprised of three distinct organizations, Hull City Archives, Hull Local Studies Library and the University of Hull’s Archives and Special Collections. Similar collaborative ventures include The Keep in East Sussex and The Hive in Worcestshire.

71. Newman, “Sustaining Community Archives,” 99.