The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has said that the transfer of Irish Land Commission (ILC) records to the National Archives could take up to 15 years to complete.
Established in 1881 under the Lands Act, the commission’s primary role was to oversee the dissolution of large land estates and enable tenants to purchase the subdivided holdings.
Following independence in 1923, the ILC continued to acquire and distribute estates and administered land purchase schemes.
The commission was dissolved in March 1999 and its historic records were transferred to the department of agriculture.
Land Commission
The DAFM records branch unit in Portlaoise contains up to 11 million individual records produced by the former land commission.
It is the largest single collection of Irish records covering the late 19th and early 20th centuries outside of the National Archives.
The records include wills, deeds, maps, estate records, family trees, rent books and correspondence.
The department said that the ILC records are an important collection from a national historical perspective and are working documents which are used daily and consulted in land ownership matters.
“All records will first have to be identified, catalogued and conserved before the department can start the transfer of the records to the National Archives.
The department, together with the National Archives, is devising a detailed survey to identify and catalogue a representative sample of the records with a view to better understanding the likely time frame for the completion of such work,” a DAFM spokesperson told Agriland.
Once that information is known the department said that it will then be in a position to provide “an informed estimate of the timeline for making the records available to the public”.
The department said it expects some records, such as fair rent order for the entire country, will be transferring to the National Archives within about two years and made available to the public shortly after that.
“Additional records are likely to transfer to the National Archives at scheduled intervals with the entire collection ultimately transferring within an estimated 10-15 year timeframe,” the spokesperson added.