Friday 25 April 2014

Galway Archives releases Irish Volunteers material

An online exhibition commemorating the Irish Voluteers, Galway City Corps, has been published by Galway County Council Archives as part of the Council's Decade of Commemorations strategy.

It includes original source material recording the development of the Volunteers in Galway City in 1914 and includes records documenting the split in the organisation following the outbreak of World War I. There's also correspondence between the Galway branch and the Volunteers’ Headquarters in Dublin, such as an order for rifles (17 Sept 1914, GS13/02), some of which is signed and / or initially by Liam Mellows. Of more immediate interest to Irish family historians are the documents which record names of members of the Galway City Corps and details of the subscriptions they paid.

The exhibition is primarily comprised of items from two collections held in the Archives: Minutes of the Irish Volunteers, Galway City Corps dating from 4 May to 20 September 1914, (GS01/03), (a 6Mb pdf) and a City Corps file of correspondence dating from 25 July to 5 October 1914, (GS13/02), a 7.2Mb pdf.

Available for free download in pdf format, the two collections contain a wealth of rarely accessed material.

Be sure to also check out the growing list of digital archives being made available by Galway Council Archives.