Tipperary Studies, the local history branch of Tipperary County Council Library Service, is delighted to announce the launch of its brand new website which has been designed to provide visitors with a much more effective and intuitive browsing experience.
www.tippstudiesdigital.ie is the new home for the vast collection of material that has been produced as part of the Tipperary Studies Digitisation Project over the last 4 years, an anthology of digital documents and images that spans many aspects of life in the history of Co. Tipperary, from public administration and politics to sports and recreation. One of the new features of this updated and improved website is the enhanced facility for researchers to carry out in-depth and accurate searches in all of the collections, meaning that it is now possible to search the ever-expanding files for names, places and events. This function will open up a whole host of opportunities for patrons availing of our digital resources, resulting in more productive research for genealogists, historians and casual browsers. When the site’s predecessor was launched a number of years ago Tipperary County Council Library Service was delighted with the response and interest shown in the Digitisation Project and this launch marks the latest development in our commitment to making ever increasing resources available worldwide, free of charge.
To mark the latest upgrade in service Tipperary Studies is pleased to announce that a collection is being made available for the first time on www.tippstudiesdigital.ie, namely The Gaelic Sportsman newspaper, with 112 issues from 1950 to 1955. This is due in no small part to the kind permission of the family of the late Pádraig Puirséal, founder of the newspaper, to allow this paper to be published online. Pádraig Puirséal was one of the great writers on all matters relating to the GAA, but he also had a wide sporting interest as evidenced by the material he collected over the years, which is now held in the Pádraig Puirséal Archive in the UCD Special Collections. Pádraig also wrote several books, one of them being The GAA in its Time.
Also appearing for the first time, through the kind co-operation of his family, is the autograph book of John Sharkey, who was held in “Tintown Internment Camp No. 3” in The Curragh in 1923. The book contains signatures, messages, sketches and poems written by his fellow prisoners and will be of great value to anyone with an interest in researching both Ireland’s War of Independence and Civil War.
Tipperary Studies is greatly indebted to the many private individuals who, over the years, have been kind enough to donate material in their possession so that they may be digitised and made available to access to a world-wide audience. If you or someone you know has collections that are of historic value to Co. Tipperary, and you are interested in collaborating with us to have them processed for publication online, please contact us at studies@tipperarycoco.ie / Tel. 0761 06 6123 and we would be delighted to discuss this with you.