The Archaeological Survey of Ireland is a unit of the National Monuments Service, which is currently managed by the

Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage () is a department of the Government of Ireland. It is led by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Departmental team The official headquarters and ministerial office ...

. The unit maintains a database of all known archaeological monuments and sites in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

that date from before 1700 with few selected monuments of the post-1700 period. The database has more than 138,800 records related to archaeological monuments. The Archaeological Survey of Ireland was founded first in 1930 by the National Monuments Advisory Council when the National Monuments Act 1930 came into effect. A central archive was established in 1933 under the direction of the Inspector of National Monuments, Harold G. Leask, to collect published materials about all archaeological sites and monuments. After refounding the Archaeological Survey of Ireland in 1963, field surveys began with

County Louth County Louth ( ; ) is a coastal Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of County Meath, Meath to the ...

in 1965. The compilation of the ''Sites and Monuments Record'' (SMR) started in 1982 with per-county lists that were completed in 1992. These lists were later used for the statuary ''

Record of Monuments and Places The Record of Monuments and Places (RMP; ) is a list of historical and archaeological sites the Republic of Ireland established under the National Monuments Acts. It can be consulted in county libraries and local authority offices and online and ...

'' (RMP) that was established by the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, consisting of brief per-county lists and associated maps. In 1982, the Commissioners of Public Works decided to publish a series of archaeological inventories, designed to be comprehensive listings of all sites but providing only very brief summaries. The inventories came with the hope to raise awareness for the monuments to defend against the increasing destruction of vulnerable sites. The series started in 1986 with County Louth. Currently, it consists of 21 volumes, covering, at least partially, 16 of the 26 traditional

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

of the Republic. In a subsequent phase, a series of much more detailed archaeological surveys was to be published. Currently, only one such volume, covering County Louth, was published by the government in 1989 that was inspired by the previously published archaeological surveys for two

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

counties:

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

(1966) and

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

(1983). The SMR dataset can be accessed through the Historic Environment Viewer that supports also the data from the ''

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) maintains a central database of the architectural heritage of the Republic of Ireland covering the period since 1700 in complement to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, which focuses on arc ...

'' (NIAH) of the post-1700 heritage. The dataset has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence which, however, does not cover third party materials like the maps of the

Ordnance Survey Ireland Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI; ) was the national mapping agency of the Republic of Ireland. It was established on 4 March 2002 as a body corporate. It was the successor to the former Ordnance Survey of Ireland. It and the Ordnance Survey of ...

Notes

References

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External links

Historic Environment Viewer application

Digitised dataset of the records of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland

Record of Monuments and Places
Archaeology of Ireland Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Heritage registers in the Republic of Ireland