How to look for records of... State Papers Ireland 1509-1782: government papers on Irish affairs

These records cover all sides of royal government and include correspondence and other papers either written by or representing officials in Dublin, privy councillors serving the monarch in London, and inhabitants of Ireland seeking royal favours or justice.

2. What are the State Papers Ireland 1509-1782?

The State Papers Ireland are made up mainly of correspondence between the monarch’s secretaries of state in Whitehall and the government of Ireland in Dublin.

They are the most important source of information on the governance of Ireland in the early modern period and, in the main, contain official and private letters between the crown’s representatives in Ireland (lead by lord deputy or lord lieutenant) and the monarch’s officials in London.

Sorted and bound chronologically, the papers cover a wide range of subjects, including, but not limited to, the following:

• security
• offices of state
• finance
• trade
• land ownership
• military matters
• ecclesiastical matters

Within the State Papers Ireland it is possible to trace the expansion of the English state from the early 16th century, through the periods of conflict and consolidation of the 17th century, to outright control by the 18th century.

This once disparate set of records was reorganised into a more coherent collection in the 19th century, drawn together from papers held by the former State Papers Office, as well as from the Treasury of the Exchequer and numerous other sources across The National Archives.

State Papers Ireland is made up of eight series:

• SP 60 (12 volumes) – Henry VIII, 1509-1547
• SP 61 (4 volumes) – Edward VI, 1547-1553
• SP 62 (2 volumes) – Mary I, 1553-1558
• SP 63 (480 volumes) Elizabeth I – George III, 1558-1782
• SP 64 (2 volumes) – Maps
• SP 65 (14 volumes) – Folios
• SP 66 (2 volumes) – Cases
• SP 67 (23 volumes) – Entry Books, 1681-1776

The destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922 resulted in the loss of the archive of the English government in Ireland from the 13th to the 20th centuries. This guide also highlights where to go to consult records that were housed in Dublin and transcribed before the PROI was destroyed.

3. How to search the records

3.1 Online

All of the State Papers Ireland have been digitised and are available to view on State Papers Online (£), which is free to view at The National Archives or via universities and research institutions with a subscription.

3.2 Calendars

Bundled and bound chronologically, State Papers Ireland are ordered by date. As they are not searchable on our catalogue below piece level, the principal means of accessing the papers remains the published Calendars of State Papers Ireland.

The published calendars cover the period 1509-1670 and then continue unsatisfactorily in the Calendars of State Papers Domestic until 1704, when the printed series ends.

For 1715-1760, there are unpublished typescript calendars of SP 63 at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

From 1760-1775 the State Papers Ireland are included in the Calendars of Home Office Papers of the reign of George III.

3.3 How to convert references in the printed calendars

Each piece number in SP 60-67 is represented in the printed calendars by a Roman numeral at the top of each page which should be converted into an Arabic numeral (for example, vol. CCCX = SP 63/310). The item numbers, which are on the left hand side of each page of the printed calendars and start from 1 at the beginning of each volume, serve only to identify the item within the piece. See section 11 for a key to these margin references.

4. Records from the Tudor period: the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth

State Papers Ireland for the Tudor period are contained in SP 60-62 and thereafter SP 63 vols 1-215. Calendars of State Papers relating to Tudor Ireland published in the 19th century are considered not fit for purpose on account of the brevity of their entries and the inaccuracy of place name and personal name identification. Ten volumes from 1586 to 1603 can be read on British History Online.

The first two of Hugh O’Neill’s list of War Aims, November 1599 (catalogue reference SP 63/206)

Documents relating to Ireland for the reign of Henry VIII from institutions other than The National Archives are also included in Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. See section 11 for a key to these references.

The Irish Manuscripts Commission has worked to replace the deficient calendars by publishing certain revised volumes with further publications to appear in the coming years:

• 1509-1547 edited by Steven Ellis and James Murray
• 1547-1553 edited by Colm Lennon
• 1566-1567 edited by Bernadette Cunningham
• 1568-1571 edited by Bernadette Cunningham
• 1571-1575 edited by Mary O’Dowd

Other useful sources for Tudor Ireland include:

• SC 11 which relates to monastic lands confiscated by the Crown in 1540-41
• David Heffernan, Reform Treatises on Tudor Ireland, 1537-1599 (Dublin, 2016)

5. Records from the Stuart period: the reigns of James I, Charles I, Charles II and James II

State Papers Ireland for the 17th century continue in SP 63/216-277 (James I and Charles I) and SP 63/303-352 (Charles II and James II). All are available to read on State Papers Online (£) or accessed using the on site computers at The National Archives in Kew (free of charge).

The Calendars of State Papers Ireland for the Stuart monarchs are the simplest means of accessing the records for this period and run from 1603-1670. These printed calendars are more reliable and extensive than the 19th-century efforts for the Tudor period but are not comprehensive. The calendars for 1633-1670 also incorporate records from outside the State Papers series including:

• Signet Office Letter Books from SO 1 authorising the lord lieutenant or lord deputy to pass Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland. Indexes are also in SO 2 and SO 3.
• Docquet Books, which briefly surmise the King’s Bills, in SO 3.
• King’s Bills in SP 39 (which run from 1609-1642 and continue after 1661 in SO 7).
• A small number of records relate to Ireland in the Secretary of State’s Entry Book in SP 44. For the period 1661-1690, there are similar entry books in SP 63 (SP 63/308, 312, 318, 336, 340 and 341).

From 1670 to 1690, there are no specific finding aids for SP 63 and Irish records are incorporated into the Calendars for State Papers Domestic (available on British History Online behind a paywall or available for free in the reading rooms at The National Archives in Kew).

Other useful sources include:

• Irish patent rolls issued by James I and housed in the Public Record Office of Ireland were transcribed in the 19th century and published in 1960 by the Irish Manuscripts Commission
• Transcriptions of Irish Patent Rolls from Charles I’s reign that were housed in Dublin but now destroyed
• Records of draft bills to be approved at Whitehall before presentation to the Irish parliament for 1634-35
• Transcripts of documents related to the governance of Ireland between Elizabeth I and James I’s reign that were housed in Dublin but were destroyed in 1922
• Privy Council Registers (PC 2/27-72) contain voluminous administrative detail on the governance of Ireland. Unindexed digital images for Charles II and James II’s reigns are available to view (free of charge) on the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website and are arranged chronologically by monarch
• The acts of James II’s Irish Parliament of 1689 edited by John Bergin and Andrew Lyall (Dublin, 2017). The papers of the Irish Jacobite parliament were ordered to be burnt in 1695. It passed 35 acts, of which the text of 25 survive and are printed here

6. Records from the Interregnum period: 1649-1660

Accounts of public money for use in Ireland 1649-1656, with a portrait of Oliver Cromwell (catalogue reference SP 63/281, folio 1)

State Papers Ireland for the Interregnum run from SP 63/281-302. Administrative matters are covered in SP 63/281-287. These can be supplemented with the Records of the Committee for Both Kingdoms in SP 21/26, SP 21/28 and SP 21/29 and those of the Council of State in SP 25.  Alongside them, the Acts and Orders of the Interregnum and the Journals of the House of Commons are the principal sources for the governance of Ireland in this period and both can be found on British History Online.

SP 63/288-302 are papers related to Adventurers’ land claims in Ireland and are summarised in the Calendar for State Papers Ireland 1647-1660. They consist of the receipts given to those who subscribed money to parliament under the Adventurers’ Act of 1642 to support the army in Ireland in return for the promise of land, and the subsequent claims made by subscribers to prove their rights to the claim in 1653 and 1654.

Other useful sources include:

• C 219/44-45 contains Parliamentary writs and election returns for Irish MPs from 1654-56
• The 1641 Depositions database and corresponding multi-volume published versions contain accounts of atrocities committed in the 1640s as well as significant genealogical information
• Sir William Petty’s Down Survey of Ireland sought to measure lands forfeited by Catholic Irish and is replete with genealogical and geographical evidence
• Geraldine Tallon (ed.), Court of Claims 1663. Submissions and Evidence (Dublin, 2006) can be used to trace claims of land ownership after the restoration of Charles II and is a key source for genealogical research

7. Records from the reigns of William & Mary and Queen Anne: 1689-1715

State Papers Ireland for William & Mary’s reign, and that of Queen Anne, continue chronologically from SP 63/353-372. State Papers Ireland are incorporated into Calendars of State Papers Domestic until 1704 (when the printed calendars finish) and are also searchable on British History Online.

‘Entry books’ in PRO 30/26/60 contain lists of civil and military offices and office-holders c.1698-1717.

Privy Council Registers (PC 2/73-84) continue for these reigns and unindexed images are available to read on Anglo-American Legal Tradition website.

11. Key to references in the margins of calendars for State Papers

Most documents calendared are from the State Papers Ireland. This is noted in the left-hand margin by the entry.

Where the item is not described as SP Ireland, the references at the side of each entry refer to the following sources:

For the period 1603-1670, documents are mainly drawn from SP 63, but there are other document sources, as shown in the table below. The left-hand column of the table below lists original references as they appear in the calendars. The right-hand column indicates either the modern National Archives series or other archives and repositories where the documents are held.

* Public Record Office of Ireland (PROI), Four Courts Dublin. Contents largely destroyed by explosion and fire in 1922. For description and extent of holdings as of 1919, see Herbert Wood, A Guide to the Records Deposited in the Public Records Office of Ireland (Dublin, 1919) and subsequent Deputy Keepers Reports for accessions to the PROI between 1919 and 1922. Work to digitally recreate the PROI as it was in June 1922 is underway and will be available in 2022 – see Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury.

12. Further reading

There is an extensive bibliography on early modern Ireland. The following publications are among the most accessible, all available at The National Archives’ Library in Kew.

Visit the National Archives’ shop for a range of books.

For introductions to the State Papers Ireland, essays on State Papers Online (£) are very useful starting points.

Overview

• Thomas Bartlett (General Editor), The Cambridge History of Ireland (4 volumes, Cambridge, 2018)
• S J Connolly, Contested Island. Ireland 1460-1630 (Oxford, 2007)
• S J Connolly, Divided Kingdom. Ireland 1630-1800 (Oxford, 2008)

Tudor Ireland

The introductory essays within the Irish Manuscript Commission’s recently published Calendars of State Papers Tudor Ireland provide invaluable insights into the records within these volumes by scholars most familiar with their contents. Other suggested reading includes:

• Jon G Crawford, Anglicizing the government of Ireland: the Irish privy council and the expansion of Tudor rule, 1556-1578 (Dublin, 1993)
• Steven Ellis, Ireland in the Age of the Tudors, 1447-1603: English expansion and the end of Gaelic Rule (Harlow, 1998)
• David Heffernan, Debating Tudor Policy in Sixteenth-Century Ireland (Manchester, 2018)
• Colm Lennon, Sixteenth-Century Ireland. The Incomplete Conquest (Dublin, 2005)
• Christopher Maginn, William Cecil, Ireland and the Tudor State (Oxford, 2012)

Stuart Ireland

• Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British. 1580-1650 (Oxford, 2001)
• Aidan Clarke, The Old English in Ireland, 1625-1642 (London, 1966)
• Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland. Making Ireland Modern (Dublin, 2006)
• Eoin Kinsella, Catholic Survival in Protestant Ireland, 1660-1711 (Woodbridge, 2018)
• Charles Ivar McGrath, The Making of the Eighteenth-Century Irish Constitution: government, parliament and the revenue, 1692-1714 (Dublin, 1999)

Interregnum

• Toby Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland. English Government and Reform in Ireland, 1649-1660 (Oxford, 1975)
• Karl Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land. The ‘Adventurers’ in the Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland (Oxford, 1971) which lists all Adventurers in appendix.
• John Cunningham, Conquest and land in Ireland: the transplantation to Connacht, 1649-1680 (Woodbridge, 2011)

Hanoverian Ireland

• S J Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: the making of Protestant Ireland 1660-1760 (Oxford, 1992)
• David Hayton, Ruling Ireland, 1682-1742: politics, politicians and parties (Woodbridge, 2004)
• Ian McBride, Eighteenth-Century Ireland. The Isle of Slaves (Dublin, 2009)