How to look for records of...

How to look for records of...

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1. Why use this guide?

Use this guide if you are looking for original sources on the Easter Rising held at The National Archives.

On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, members of the Irish Volunteers and the Citizen’s Army occupied buildings in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic.

2. Essential information The records at The National Archives have detailed information on the political and military activities as well as the events leading up to and following the Easter Rising. They contain detailed information on some key figures of the Rising. Discovery, our catalogue, contains descriptions of our records and of records held at over 2,500 other archives (mostly within the UK). To find out how to view records held at other archives please contact the relevant archive directly. 3. General search tips Look for mentions in this guide of: department references such as WO (War Office) or CO (Colonial Office)

record series references such as WO 35 or CO 903 These will help you to focus your search for relevant records using the advanced search option in our catalogue. Search for relevant records in our catalogue using keywords or a combination of keywords such as: Irish AND rebellion

Ireland AND rebellion

Easter AND Rising

Disturbances AND Ireland

Prisoners AND Irish

Irish AND nationalist The names of many of the people involved in the Rising are well known and you can search many records by name. For example, using “Constance Markievicz” as a search term will search across all record series. For general tips on searching the catalogue, use the Discovery help page. 4. Key records A number of pieces in several key record series on the Easter Rising are available online (see 4.1) but other pieces within the same series are not (see 4.2). One of these series, WO 35, is particularly rich in details of individuals – for a summary of what the entire series contains see the WO 35 series description. More details on many of these records appear throughout this guide. 4.1 Online records Click on the links in the table to search for records available online on the websites of our commercial partners – the document references for the original records, held at The National Archives, are shown in the right-hand column but are not needed for an online search. Description of records Document references Easter Rising and Ireland under martial law 1916–1921 at findmypast.co.uk (£) – these are records selected for digitisation because they contain details of individuals (includes records of people detained, interned and court-martialled) WO 35/57-58, 69-86, 94-95, 121-137, 140-142, 144-160, 208 and 214 Intelligence profiles of Sinn Fein activists 1914–1922 at ancestry.co.uk (free) – see section 5 for more details WO 35/206-207; CO 904/193-216 Courts martial records, Ireland 1916–1922 at ancestry.co.uk (free) – see section 6 for more details WO 35/68, 96-119, 143; WO 71/344-386; CO 903/19 The Key despatch from the commander in Chief, Home Forces at gazette.co.uk (free) n/a

4.2 Other key records

Many key records cannot be viewed or downloaded online. To view these records, you will need to either visit The National Archives at Kew or pay for copies to be sent to you. Alternatively, you can pay for research. You can view a breakdown of any record series by clicking on the link and scrolling down through the series description to ‘Browse by Reference’.