The Irish Republican Digital Archive

The Final Upload

24 October 2025

A chairde,

Today marks a huge moment for the Irish Republican Digital Archive where I’ve just uploaded the final 1,930 documents. This completes the full backlog that I had originally planned to release gradually between now and the Summer of 2026. With this addition, the archive now contains 4,050 documents available for everyone to read and download.

It’s been a massive undertaking that took hundreds of hours of editing, scanning, and organising, but I couldn’t be prouder to see it all come together. What began as a small idea has grown into the largest freely accessible online collection of Irish Republican material.

Below is an overview of the material added in this final update:

Seven New Sections

  • Three Temporary Sections

These three sections allow visitors to easily view the latest material in one place without having to search through different categories. In the New Year, these documents will be redistributed into their proper sections along with a small tidy up of the website.

November Temp Sections Update (425 documents)

This section has documents grouped together based on the following:

  • APRN 1982, The 1978 Collection, 1798, Hibernia, The Irish People, RSF, 32CSM, The New Republican Forum, The Twilight Years (1938-1949), The Twilight Years (1924-1937), The United Irishman (1948-1969), German, Irish National Congress, People’s Democracy, The Shan Van Vocht, The Irish People (Hunger Strike 1981 Coverage), Éirígí.
  • https://republicanarchive.com/2025/08/29/nov-temp-section-updates/

No more uploads

With this milestone, the active phase of the project has now come to an end. I’ve uploaded all outstanding items and I have given the archive everything I have in both documents and energy. Since the summer of 2024, every spare hour has gone into scanning, organising, uploading, and preserving this material. With a young family, a busy career and other active hobbies I can no longer continue.

Some have encouraged me to keep uploading, and I appreciate that deeply as it comes from kindness and belief in the work. But I know in myself that I’ve reached the end. I’ve done all I can, and there’s nothing left to give to this project without losing the joy that first inspired it. My decision is final and it’s time to move on to something else, content knowing that my vision for the Archive is complete. The website will remain online indefinitely and it will stand on its own from here.

More can be done

Throughout the project, I reached out to a number of organisations, museums, and political groups who never responded. Far more should be done by these bodies to preserve and share the historical record of our struggle and heritage. Too often, valuable archives sit hidden or neglected.

The Archive stands as proof that one person, with limited means but enough persistence, can make a lasting difference. There’s a whole generation of stories and documents still waiting to be digitised and I hope that others, especially organisations with greater resources, will now take up the baton.

Thanks

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the project, especially those who donated or shared material to make the archive stronger. A special thank-you to irishrepublicanarchive on Instagram for their generous donations, and to Colum for both contributions and invaluable advice. My gratitude also goes to Brian, Seán, Txente, Colm and Jason, and to everyone who offered support along the way. There were a handful of people who kindly offered material that I unfortunately didn’t get to before bringing the project to a close, and I want to apologise for that.

Looking back over the past year, I’m incredibly proud of what’s been achieved. I’m off now for a change of pace — walking in the countryside, listening to Bob Dylan, and a few glasses of Irish whiskey.

We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future – P.H. Pearse.

Slán libh,

Alan