Ms Máire Mac Conghail:

We all use the rootsireland.ie website. It is very good and very often it brings one down to 1900. One has to remember that they are transcriptions and from the researcher's point of view, one has to see the original to carry through the research. That is the difference between rootsireland.ie and the Department's website. The Department's website, which is a work in progress, certainly is not as expansive county-wise. However, its policy is to match up the transcription to the image so that, literally from the computer table, one can feel confident that what one has retrieved is the original record.