Irish Military Archives Online

The Irish Defence Forces (@defenceforces) tweeted the other day about the launch of their Military Archives web site and the release of a digitized collection of maps, plans, and drawings of military barracks in Ireland. This seems to be the first in a series of records to be released online. The physical archives are located in Cathal Brugha barracks in Rathmines in Dublin, so it's great to see online information becoming available to those that can't make the journey. Perhaps of more interest to the family historian will be the release of records of the Bureau of Military History (1913 to 1921), which contains records of the War of Independence, including many witness statements taken from the men and women that participated. The web site also has information about an upcoming project to ask members of the public to help in the identification of family members in photographs contained within the archive.