burning of the customa house

pjproby

anyone know what records were actually lost when the customs house was burned down?
for that matter what records were in the four courts when it was bombed?

McArmalite

pjproby wrote: »

anyone know what records were actually lost when the customs house was burned down?
for that matter what records were in the four courts when it was bombed?

Cann't give you specifics, but I remmeber reading Ernie O'Malley's The Singing Flame and he writes that when the Four Courts blew up he was knocked to the ground and papers, books etc were flying everywhere. Picking up one beside him, he seen it contained a list of informers and their payments in 1798 or 1803, not really sure which. BTW, Ernie O'Malley's younger brother was killed in the burning of the Customs House, I think he had to jump from a high window to escape the flames but fell to his death.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Singing-Flame-Memoir-Civil-1922-24/dp/0947962328/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1/202-3884415-7156631

pjproby

thanks for that- reading a local history of Clondalkin-it seems most of the records of the Church of Ireland were stored in the Four Courts, so a good part of our history was lost.

donaghs

There are two theories on how the Four Courts exploded, one is that the Irregular forces booby-trapped that part of the building - and were therefore prepared to blow all those archives and everything else sky-high.

Some on that side have denied this, and said they had used it as an ammunition store, this caught fire during the fighting and exploded.

There was a huge wealth of info stored there. I remember also reading Ernie O'Malley's quote on the 1798 documents. From reading medieval Irish history, this is where the biggest loss of all was, and there is massive records gap in Irish history because of this. If this was a deliberate booby-trap explosion, its worse in my view than the Taliban destroying the statues of Buddha. If it was used an an ammo dump, this was an extremely small minded and stupid decision.

The Custom House had Local Govt. & Revenue information. Would have been very useful to historians now, but not in the same league as the that destroyed in the Four Courts. Was a useful part of the IRAs campaign to make Ireland ungovernable. To get more nitty gritty on the actual documents there, someone has written a book on the topic - on Amazon. Also, there bound to be a history thesis written on it too.

guinnessdrinker

I have the Singing Flame at home too, although it's a while since I read it. I too remember O' Malley mentioning the list of 1798 informers as the Four Courts began to be shelled. It's a pity so many documents were lost especially in the Four Courts.

Zaphod

What if the Four Courts had not been burned in 1922
http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2008/pc/pod-v-170208-27m35s-whatif.mp3

Belfast

pjproby wrote: »

anyone know what records were actually lost when the customs house was burned down?
for that matter what records were in the four courts when it was bombed?

Customs house
Current Tax Records of the day

four courts
National archives, Census records, Histrionic records, Court historic records tax records etc