This volume grew out of the updating of the author’s earlier Ulster Libraries: Archives, Museums & Ancestral Heritage Centres (1997), being broadened in scope to include the whole island. A number of caveats need to be made at the start. The author states that the “primary target of this guide is the visitor, chiefly the North American visitor, who may be taking or contemplating a trip to Ireland for the first time”. Family history and genealogy, therefore, provide the main orientation. Comprehensiveness is limited to some extent by response – some institutions did not respond, or asked not to be included, no doubt deterred by the prospect of large numbers of visitors searching for their roots, but on the whole the response was gratifying. Finally, the guide “makes no effort to evaluate the services”. Readers are referred to findings of a survey of Irish heritage centres and other more up‐to‐date sources, though the author has visited many of the institutions listed and comments favourably on them in general.
The guide is extremely well researched and presented. It will not replace, but will have to be used in conjunction with, the Directory of Irish Archives, (3rd ed., 1999) or the minimalist Directory of Libraries and Information Services in Ireland (5th ed., 1996, thenceforth updated only electronically). There are gaps in coverage (for example, diocesan archives), but unlike these other guides it includes useful and informative descriptions of the institutions, distinguishes between religious denominations, and is generally more user‐friendly. The author’s helpfulness and courtesy are apparent throughout.
This work is a perfect example of the need to read an introduction carefully before searching. The arrangement is geographic, alphabetically by city or town under the names of each of the 32 counties.
This is a satisfactory arrangement, given the orientation of the work (a classified list of institutions is also given – academic libraries and archives, archives, genealogical and heritage centres, government, public, special), and works well for most counties. Belfast causes no problems, since all the institutions mentioned are in the Co. Antrim part of the city. However, it is a shame that the author has, with the best intentions, unnecessarily confused matters in Co. Dublin by granting “county town” status to Killiney and Swords, representing the new administrative counties of South Dublin and Fingal.
The reasons for this and for similar, such as placing Fingal County Libraries under “Dublin” and Fingal genealogy under “Swords”, are painstakingly explained in the introduction. Nonetheless, one cannot help feeling that the best way to avoid this problem would have been to treat Co. Dublin as synonymous with Dublin and provide a map showing the outlying resources. It must be said also that the running title, for typesetting reasons, is more of a hindrance than a help; it would have been better for it to announce the town or city under discussion rather than the institution.
A glossary, bibliography (useful for Irish and Irish‐American history) and index are provided as well as two interesting appendices (Tracing your County Kildare ancestors and Tithe and valuation records, c. 1823) and this adds considerably to the appeal of the guide. Glossary definitions are good and contain useful background information, for example, on the complexity of the parish system. Highly recommended.
