Church of Ireland Gazette 1911–23 released online, free

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The Church of Ireland's ongoing project to digitise historical issues of the Church of Ireland Gazette has delivered a bumper package that sees all editions published from 1911 to 1923 freely available online on an exceptionally high-quality search engine.  Previously, editions for just three years – 1913–1915 – were available.

The title is re-launched as Representative Church Body Library's Archive of the Month for January 1916.

All the editions for the revolutionary period 1912–1922 (with an additional year either side of that) have been scanned and made fully searchable.

This means that a total of 155 weekly editions may now be freely viewed and searched online by researchers all over the world, bringing to light this crucial period from a Church of Ireland perspective in general, and also making it possible to find hitherto hidden events, people and places through the pages.

Written and read by lay and clerical members of the Church of Ireland, the Gazette (in print since 1856) provides the longest–running public commentary on the opinions and attitudes of members of the Church of Ireland, and indeed the wider Protestant community on the island. It is a recognised resource for understanding the complexities and nuances of this identity, North and South.

The project to make the paper available for research and public interest is a collaborative venture between the RCB Library (which holds the only complete hardcopy set) and the Editor and Board of the Gazette, and to date has been funded largely through sponsorship.