The National Archives

If you have never been here before you need a readers ticket just take along some photo ID and a house bill and this can be sorted quite quickly.
This is a great place for research and also genealogy. Although there is so much info here it can be difficult to find so go to the genealogy room first for advice first.
Going to the NA is a little like going to a dress shop and telling them what you want and they bring one dress out at a time and ask if this is what you like!
They could do with a few floating helpers as it would speed up your time for finding what you need. Some of the workers there are helpful some just point or refer you to someone else — which could be improved upon.
I am one of these people who when given directions to find things can never find them — ‘You cannot miss it’ is a kiss of death to me!
I am however a great map reader and there is no map in this place!
Still it is all we have so I have to be a fan.

The National Archives is in the old Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, which was occupied by the rebel forces during the Easter Rising in 1916. Unfortunately, a lot of records were destroyed in the Four Courts during 1922, but for all papers related to Governmental Departments, et al.
They offer free Genealogical Services, which is great for people who don’t know their way around the archives/​what exactly they’re looking for. They’ve also put the Census of 1911 online, so now it can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
The archives are quite disorganised when you’re actually in there and I’ve gone in several times and located files that I wanted to look at and the files were nowhere to be found. Also the archives don’t have their catalogue digitised so you have to search through different finding aids to locate the files that are of use. They do have a bit of a search engine on their website, but it is limited in the results it returns/​the search criteria you can set.

Three kinds of people are to be found here: historians, students and those researching their family history.
The first two categories tend to be interested in official government files detailing pretty much everything up to 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, genealogists gravitate towards the census returns and other family-​orientated records.
A treasure-​trove of time. Be sure to check out
for admission requirements.