The Irish archives are a partial model for information retrieval today – if the politicians ever let it happen
The release of papers about the rank and file – and the women – of the 1916 Easter Rising should prompt greater depth and detail in the writing of history you might have thought had been well turned over already. But you’d be wrong. The eminent historian Diarmaid Ferriter explains the crucial role of the Bureau of Military History, the archive of accounts of veterans recorded mainly in the 1940s and 50s well after the main events. The bureau began document release …