Dublin, 30 June 2020: In 1922, an explosion during the Civil War started the Four Courts fire that destroyed thousands of pages of documents spanning centuries of Irish history. The Beyond 2022 team has been diligently working despite the current COVID-19 crisis to unveil the first look into the project to digitally reconstruct the lost archive in Virtual Reality.
The project is set to be complete in 2022, for the centennial anniversary of the fire, and will create a digital repository of the lost documents by scouring the globe for copies in other archives. Last year, the Irish government awarded Beyond 2022 another €2.5 million to continue with their research, providing means for at least 10 full-time researchers.
The project is a result of the collaborative efforts between the ADAPT Centre, the world-leading SFI Research Centre for Digital Media Technology hosted by Trinity College Dublin, and the Trinity Long Room Hub. The collaborative project joins digital media and technology experts and historians to authentically bring this historic building and archive back to life.
Beyond 2022 has just launched with their first Unlocking the Archives online event where the team showcased their new research. In the evening tonight, they are hosting a second event where the team will go into the creative challenge of commemoration and will present some of the work to date on the Virtual Record Office.
The Beyond 2022 project was recently featured in the Irish Times and Director, Dr. Peter Crooks, appeared on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland to discuss the launch.
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