Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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501. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht when the next five years of the papers will be published in view of the fact that the years 1818 to 1822 of the Chief Secretary's office registered papers by the National Archives are published. [10345/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is referring to a project at the National Archives, to catalogue to international archival standards, the Chief Secretary 's Office Registered Papers from 1818 to 1852. The Chief Secretary for Ireland was the Government Minister of the British Cabinet with responsibility for governing Ireland from the early 19th century until the end of British rule. This project will facilitate public access to one of the most valuable sources of original material for research on Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century. There are currently three archivists employed on the project.

The catalogue records for the years 1823 – 1827 have been completed and they are in the process of being edited for online publication in addition to the drafting of other contextual material.  It is expected that these will be made available on line later in 2017.

The project was originally made possible by a bequest from the late Professor Francis J Crowley. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Professor Crowley was educated at Yale and Princeton, and became a professor of French at the University of California at Los Angeles. Both his parents were born in Ireland, and in his will he bequeathed most of his estate to Ireland to be used for the preservation of records of the history of the Irish people.