Efforts have started to preserve and digitize one of the oldest paper documents on the island of Ireland. The ecclesiastical register, dating back approximately 650 years to the medieval period, belonged to the former Archbishop of Armagh, Milo Sweteman.
Experts at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland have been painstakingly restoring delicate pages as part of efforts to revive and preserve some of Ireland’s most precious historical texts. These church registers contain copies or draft documents prepared by the chancery office of the archbishops, which includes among other things legal papers, episcopal letters, letters exchanged, receipts, and testaments.
The Sweteman register from 1361 to 1380 is under conservation. This work has already been done on the Archbishop John Swayne’s register from 1418 to 1438. Now, one can view the digitized version of the same along with the translation summary available online.
The conservation process for Swayne’s register included the removal of 17th-century bindings, gentle washing of paper folios, and consolidating each piece with a weak gelatine solution. Tears and losses in the paper were repaired with Japanese kozo paper before rebinding the books in 17th-century binding material.
Ongoing work on Sweteman’s register is to correct damage done in early conservation efforts in the 20th century, using acidic tracing paper that had accelerated corrosion of the ink and the paper. Tracing paper is being removed with a specialist gel followed by a low-pressure wash. Kozo paper and wheat starch paste repairs applied to Swayne’s register are again being used.
The other conserved is being done in a third register dated 1400 to 1418 which had been previously owned by the former Archbishop Nicholas Fleming.
Sarah Graham, Proni head of conservation, commented on the scarcity of paper during the period the registers were written, as most preferred parchment from animal skins. A study of the watermarks showed that the paper is Italian and Spanish in origin, probably imported by the archbishops during their European journeys.
The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland aims to recreate partially the rich historical archive destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Public Record Office of Ireland in Dublin during the Irish Civil War. Graham emphasized that these centuries-old documents are preserved so that they are accessible to the public now and to future generations for understanding their history and heritage.
