Roman Catholic parish registers constitute by far the most important set of records for 19th-century Irish local and family history. And, in the furore over access, one vital point is constantly missed. The original records are still sitting in the sacristies and presbyteries around the country where they have been for the past two centuries. No organization on the island is concerned with preserving them: there is no archival programme to ensure their survival.
Why should this matter? Aren’t they’re all copied online anyway? Or on microfilm in the National Library?
Here are some facts about the collections of copies. The National Library microfilm project, heroic as it was, has serious flaws. A few parishes were missed entirely – Rathlin Island, for example – and some films are so out of focus as to be illegible. Comparing the years covered by the heritage centres' transcriptions with the years held on Library microfilm reveals that at least 200 parishes have records earlier than those filmed by the Library. Aghada in east Cork, for example, has records going back 40 years before the NLI microfilm.
The mismatch also works in the other direction. More than 100 parishes have earlier years on microfilm than in heritage centre transcript. Newtowncashel in Longford has a full register containing 35 years of baptisms on NLI film, which is missing from Longford Heritage Centre records. The likelihood is that this earlier register was somehow lost or destroyed between the NLI microfilm in the 1970s and the transcription project in the 1990s. How many other registers have also since disappeared?
No copy can take the place of the original. The registers themselves are the property of the Catholic Church, and also the Church's responsibility. If the Hierarchy wants to keep them private, by all means let them be locked away in diocesan archives for a century or more. But something has to be done to stop these priceless records from rotting away.