THE FAMILY archive of the Blarney Castle estate in Cork is to be handed over to the Cork City and County Archive Centre next week.
The archive contains more than 2,300 items stretching from 1334 to 1978, and is the gift of Sir Charles Colthurst of Blarney House.
The collection is described by archivist Brian McGee as the most important collection of landed estate papers to be acquired by the centre. “It is a substantial grouping of very high quality material which will be of great interest, and we are also delighted that it was given to us freely and whole-heartedly.”
The archive will join an earlier group of Colthurst papers dating from the 1700s which were donated to the city several years ago, but left unrecorded in a municipal storehouse until the opening of a dedicated archive centre at Christ Church.
A new purpose-built centre was opened in Blackpool two years ago and both sections of the archive will be kept there, amounting in all to nearly 4,000 pieces.
These include wills, leases, contracts and many other legal documents; letters, including a group dating from 1700 to 1780; marriage settlements; birth and death certificates; valuations; Land Commission, Revenue and local authority correspondence; inventories, appointments and liveries (one dated from 1602 still carries the Great Seal of Elizabeth I); sketches, photographs and family memorabilia.
Among them is a letter of 1690 giving a safe-conduct pass to Sir Charles Mac Carthy of the family that built Blarney Castle and signed by Lord Broghill, grandson of Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork.
There are also records of early 16th-century transactions involving property at Shandon and translated in 1884 by the historian and antiquarian Richard Caulfield.
While cataloguing the library at Blarney House last year, information consultant Margaret Lantry began to find individual papers, packets and files left in various places. She has compiled an initial 500-page inventory of the material, on which the archive centre will now begin dedicated study.
Former senator and emeritus professor of history at UCC John A Murphy said the collection is “a great treasure trove” relating to a place that has such affectionate connotations for Cork.
The Colthursts, originally from nearby Ardrum, have been at Blarney House since 1846, but the archive contains material relating to earlier landlords connected to the family and referring to many other Cork properties such as Dunkettle, Castle Salem and Inchera.
“The big house is now making available the records of the past to the plain people, and gratis in this case,” said Prof Murphy. “This gift is a symbol of reconciliation and contact, especially given that we weren’t so careful of our records ourselves.”