Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the work of the National Archives, the military archives and other archives in universities and academic institutions. I welcome the interlinking of databases and the digitisation of the records. As a pastime I spend a great deal of time looking at these archives.

I met a Member of the Welsh Assembly last week and when he told me where his grandfather had come from, I was able to find the 1901 and the 1911 censuses and other items within two minutes. It is very important to protect whatever archives we have, but also to increase our expenditure on the National Library of Ireland and the county libraries which do a fantastic job. Other archives are important such as the records of baptisms in the Catholic Church. My people came from County Kerry and I can get church archives dating back to 1828-29. They are photocopies rather than digital, but it is amazing what one can find out. They are very useful. One of the biggest growth industries in Ireland and the world is www.ancestry.com .

Somebody from my street is married to one of its senior executives, but I will not mention their name and embarrass them. I refer to the reach of the website, the work it has and how it has reunited people from a nation who have emigrated far and wide but particularly to the United Kingdom and America. The American records are particularly good. In fact, I traced a relation of mine from whom nobody had heard since they emigrated in 1914. We were able to trace them, where they lived, including the different addresses, and what they did. The American archives are really remarkable.

In terms of education, local history topics are hugely important such as the place one lives, as are photographs of one's family, including photographs of one's grandparents and great-grandparents. We all like to look at the Lawrence collection of photographs and other photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I am not a researcher in this area but we should encourage more people to upload images of their towns. For instance, there is a Drogheda in the Past group on Facebook. I am sure many people enjoy going on Facebook and looking at images of their own towns. There is a huge respect for, and interest in, the past and how things were and how they never more shall be.

It is good to be able to look back and see the poverty from which we came. We note the way people dressed, their small holdings and perhaps the tenements in which they lived. That is all part of our history. It is not just about the history of lords and ladies, the great and good and the wealthy; it is about the ordinary people and our social history. These are the things that count.

Some years ago when I was a member of a local authority - I think I was first elected in 1974 when few people in the House were born - the local court house was being demolished because it was dangerous. Before its demolition, I went into the building to see where, during the 18th and 19th centuries, judges gave rather difficult rulings against those who ended up on the wrong side of Australia. Under the dias, the elevated platform where the judges sat, I discovered many old records, including indentures of apprentices going back to 1700. When looking around other parts of the old court house, I found records on housing. In the 1920s and 1930s when the county doctor visited a family, he would write about the conditions of the house and the people in it and the illnesses from which they may have suffered. These records were a wonderful historic and social commentary. The individuals named were special and I would not mention them.

Keeping archives is about keeping alive where and what we have all come from. It is about what our ancestors did, how great they were, how poor they were and what little education they had. In the case of my own family, I have found records going back to the 1830s, but I am able to look to the 1901 census, as can everybody in this House. In the 1901 census I can see that my great-great-grandfather was unable to read or write and was unable to speak English. He spoke only Irish, which was also the case with his bean ceile. One can discover so much. I love the work that is being done. This legislation is empowering and improves the keeping and the collection of these records. This is hugely important. This is wealth from our past that we must keep.

Our Facebook today is our archive of tomorrow. What people post on Facebook is there forever in its own way. Perhaps, in many respects, it is the modern archive, which is one reason people must be very careful about what they post on it.

This is hugely important work with great benefits for everybody. We all need to know where we come from, who we are and what we are, and the collection and keeping of the archival material is a wonderful task.

I attended an event in Cooley, timpeall coicís ó shin. Bhí ócáid mhór ann le Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin. Tá cnuasach mór eolais bailithe aici faoin gceol, faoin ngnáthshaol agus, ach go háirithe, faoi na daoine a bhí ag maireachtáil le cúpla céad bhliain anuas san áit ar a dtugtar Oriel nó Oirialla. Ar an oíche sin bhí daoine ag seinnm ceol a cumadh 200 bliain ó shin. Bhí fear ann a chas amhrán nár casadh le níos mó ná 200 bliain. Aimsíodh an ceol i seancháipéis a fuair Ms Ní Uallacháin. Canadh an ceol seo den chéad uair le 200 bliain anuas. Ócáid iontach a bhí ann.

The archives which Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin has collected in the area of Oirialla, or Oriel in English, which includes north Louth, south Down and part of Monaghan, records a wonderful, rich, beautiful, fabulous heritage, but it is more than that, it is historic. Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin has put together a magnificent collection without pay or favour from anyone, with some support from the Arts Council. She is dedicated to it. On the night in question, as I said as Gaeilge, we heard the most wonderful, fabulous music which had not been heard in over 200 years. Imagine going into a room where a man stands up and sings a song, a beautiful air that no one has heard in over 200 years. This is the material being collected. The Pádraigín Ní Uallacháins and all those like her up and down the country are fantastic in all the work they do. Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil an deich nóiméad beagnach caite.

I refer to the wealth, the wonder and the beauty of the fantastic and wonderful traditions that we have in Ireland. It is one thing to collect them and hold them dear in our hearts and minds, but it is another to collect them in order that everybody, no matter where they live not only in Ireland but all over the world, may access them and to make them digitally available in order that they may be kept forever is wonderful work. It holds far greater truth and value to me than many of the speeches people like me make in here all the time. It is our past but it is also our future from which we can all learn. It makes us all humble.

In In Search of Lost TimeProust wrote of the certainty that the past is never over, it is always present; all one needs to do is look for it. If one looks for one's own past, one will live alongside one's ancestors in their times and places. They were no different from us, although their lives may have been shorter and tougher. The collection of this material is wonderful.

I support this legislation. I do not know how much funding is going into the National Archives, but I would like to see it increased by a multitude.

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