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List of project sources by repository

The EMPIRE project engages with a remarkable range of seventeenth-century sources for Irish history that have come to light in recent years, largely through the creation of the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, which sought to recover as much as possible of the contents of the Public Record Office of Ireland destroyed in 1922. These records are central to understanding Ireland’s role as a key resource base in England’s emergence as a global power. Using cutting-edge Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology, particularly Transkribus, alongside AI tools such as ChatGPT, the project works to transcribe, translate, calendar and transform these materials into structured, searchable, machine-readable datasets. The same methods are now being applied to neglected sources in archives across Europe, opening up new possibilities for comparative research into the development of early modern empires. By making these sources accessible, the project aims to support a fuller understanding of how Ireland, its land, labour, commodities, and institutions, shaped the wider history of European expansion.

Project published sources

The EMPIRE project periodically releases the results of its work in transcribing, translating and processing a diverse range of primary source material relating to the Atlantic world in the seventeenth-century. These are published on the CERN-operated open repository Zenodo under a Creative Commons license. This page lists and links to the collections released to date.

Other Project Publications

Published output in the form of journal articles and book chapters are listed here.