Who We Are
The mission of the Military Archives is to acquire, preserve and make available to the public the documentary heritage of the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence.
As such, the Military Archives is the place of deposit for the archives of the Defence Forces, the Department of Defence and the Army Pensions Board, under the terms of the National Archives Act, 1986. Archives are records with a special significance, records that are deemed to be of enduring value, for a variety of reasons. The term record includes paper documents such as ‘one off’ files, letters and memoranda, as well as pictorial records such as photographs and film. This is unlike the material held in a typical library, which is almost always printed or published material that has been widely disseminated in bound volume (book) format. Archives are therefore absolutely unique and irreplaceable: once lost they can never be recovered. Increasingly, archives today are also acquired in electronic format – whether sound, image or text digital files.
About us
The Military Archives is an official place of deposit since 1990 as defined in the National Archives Act, 1986. The Archives currently has a staff of four archivists and one archival assistant, under the supervision of Comdt Victor Laing, with Capt Stephen Mac Eoin as staff officer. Associated with the archives is the Military Service Pensions Project with a staff of three archivists, under the direction of Mr. Pat Brennan. These pensions’ files (and indeed the project) are not in the public domain and are currently closed to the public, except for access to next of kin through correspondence at the address in our Contact Us and our FAQ section.
All of the archivists at Military Archives have completed professional postgraduate archivist education at the School of History and Archives, University College Dublin. The Military Archives is an institutional member of the Society of Archivists (UK and Ireland).