Wednesday, 10 April 2013

PRONI buys the Londonderry Papers for £665,000

PRONI has spent £665,000 to bring the Londonderry Papers – archives from the estate of Lady Mairi Bury of Mount Stewart – into public ownership

The archive, which includes a range of documents from 1670 to 1950, was already held at PRONI and has enjoyed wide usage by researchers. The purchase means PRONI can now be confident of keeping the archive intact (it contains some 30,000 individual documents, volumes, maps and plans) and properly preserved for future generations.

At the core of the collection are the papers of the Marquesses of Londonderry and their estates in Counties Down, Donegal and Derry. These include a detailed record of title deeds, leases and rentals which provide a valuable source for tenants’ names. The collection also contains considerable political correspondence relating to a range of issues from the 1880s to 1920s, from figures including Edward Carson, James Craig, Sean O’Casey and Winston Churchill.

The records are held under PRONI reference numbers D654, D2846 and D3099. You can access the catalogue here.