Irish History Online (IHO) was established as an online database in 2003 with funding from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and was developed in association with the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History. Since January 2010 IHO has been hosted and updated by the Royal Irish Academy Library, Dublin.

Irish History Online (IHO) is part of a European network of fifteen subject-specific historical bibliographies from thirteen countries. www.histbib.eu

Since the online version first went live in 2004, Irish History Online has proved to be a highly useful and reliable bibliographic reference resource for researchers and students in the field of Irish history. The database currently contains approximately 77,000 records (February 2012).

Drawing on decades of voluntary work by compilers and editors of Writings in Irish history, the compilation of Irish History Online continues to rely principally on the work of volunteers. The creation and publication of an online version from earlier printed bibliographies, and its continuation as an online resource to the present time, was made possible through project grants from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2003-6 and 2006-9. In 2003-6, Dr Anthony McCormack and Ms Mary Murray were employed to create the online database and input retrospective records from "Writings in Irish History" 1938-2002. In 2006-9, Dr Frank Cullen enhanced the bibliographic coverage of the history of the Irish overseas, expanded other aspects of the bibliography and input data for more recent publications. During both these phases the compilation of data on new publications was done by Ciaran Nicholson (TCD) and Máirín Cassidy (UCD), working in a voluntary capacity. The IHO project benefited from collaboration with the Royal Historical Society Bibliography, and particularly the advice and assistance of Peter Salt. 

Following the termination of the second phase of funding from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences on 1 October 2009, plans were formulated by the small team of volunteers who comprise the Irish History Online Management Committee to maintain the existing database and to continue to update the database with new bibliographic data. Since January 2010 Irish History Online has been hosted by the Royal Irish Academy and the database is managed by the Royal Irish Academy Library. Irish History Online will continue to seek external funding to cover essential costs. The IHO bibliography is being updated on an ongoing basis with information about new publications. The project continues to benefit from the support of the Royal Irish Academy Committee for Historical Sciences, and Ciaran Nicholson (monographs and articles in books) and Máirín Cassidy (periodical articles) continue to collect new data for input. Either of the two registered domain names www.irishhistoryonline.ie or www.iho.ie can be used. Irish History Online will continue to be available as a free service to users.

Our former partner project, the Royal Historical Society Bibliography, when faced with a similar funding crisis in 2009, opted to change to a new publication model. Since January 2010 a new Bibliography of British and Irish History (in partnership with the Royal Historical Society, the Institute of Historical Research, and Brepols publishers), has been available as a subscription-only service. Further details are available on www.history.ac.uk/projects/bbih. The divergent paths being taken by the two projects means that Irish History Online no longer forms the Irish component of the new Bibliography of British and Irish History. We are exploring ways of ensuring that maximum cooperation between the two projects will continue for the future, particularly in the area of new data compilation.

Irish History Online is committed to continuing to provide a quality service that is free to users.


Last updated 7 February 2012.