The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) is delighted to announce that An Post Museum & Archive has joined as our latest member.
The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) is delighted to announce that An Post Museum & Archive has joined as our latest member.
An Post Museum & Archive holds artefacts and archival material that relates to the history of the Post Office in Ireland. While the Post Office is one of the oldest and most influential institutions of State, dating back to the sixteenth century, the material held by An Post Museum & Archive is more recent and consists largely of what has survived from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The scope of the archive is very broad and includes letters and stamps as well as records related to savings and other financial services offered by An Post, telephone and telegraph provision, and radio and broadcasting administered from Dublin’s historic General Post Office. An Post Museum & Archive’s extensive collection of Irish postage stamps reflects the development of the country, both historic and artistic, over the century since Irish independence. Formerly the State’s largest employer, the Post Office also holds material that would be of rich significance to researchers or members of the public interested in family history. Researchers, historians, and members of the public will also benefit from access to digital material which provides insight into the social development of Ireland as charted by the growth of different An Post services since the mid-nineteenth century.
DRI Director Natalie Harrower welcomed our latest member:
It’s wonderful to welcome the 19th and 20th-century collections of An Post Museum & Archive into the DRI, where they will enter into a dialogue with other collections that document, illustrate, and bring alive the role that key institutions have played in the history of this island. We look forward to supporting the continued preservation of these collections, and importantly, to making them available to larger and more widespread audiences.
Stephen Ferguson, Assistant Secretary and museum curator at An Post, commented that:
An Post is a State-owned commercial company, aware of its distinguished heritage but with very limited resources to devote to its Museum & Archive. Its collections, following the closure of the postal museum in the GPO, are not generally accessible apart from occasional exhibitions. Membership of the DRI affords it the opportunity to benefit from the expertise and experience of larger institutions and the chance to make available in digital format some of the material that has been collected and preserved by Post Office staff members over the years. I am looking forward to working with DRI to introduce Post Office history to a wider audience.
DRI looks forward to working with An Post Museum & Archive to preserve their socially and historically important collections for long-term access. Keep an eye on our Twitter feed for updates on collection publications!
