Eyewitness Accounts of 1641 Irish Rebellion to be Released Online

On the occasion of the exhibition, the transcribed and digitised 1641 Depositions, witness testimonies of the violent massacres of the 1641 Irish Rebellion, will be launched online in a new website www.1641.tcd.ie, a free resource which will be publicly available. The online resource sees the culmination of a three-year collaborative research project between TCD and the Universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge, using the latest research technology.

The 1641 Depositions are witness testimonies by mainly Protestants from all social backgrounds concerning their experiences during the rebellion of the Catholic Irish in 1641. The testimonies document sometimes in vivid and harrowing terms the alleged crimes committed by the Irish Catholic insurgents, including torture, assault, stripping, imprisonment and murder as well as the loss of goods and military activity. This body of material runs to 19, 000 pages in which 90,000 people are named and is unparalleled anywhere in early modern Europe, providing a unique source of information for the causes and events surrounding the 1641 rebellion.

For media queries, contact Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) Press Officer, Caoimhe Ní Lochlainn, tel: + 353-1 8962310\ mobile: 353-1-87-9958014/ email: communications@tcd.ie

For the online digitisation of the 1641 Depositions click on http://www.1641.tcd.ie

Details of exhibition: 5.45pm, October 22nd, 2010 Long Room, Old Library, Trinity College Dublin

A press release and images of depositions will be released on Friday, October 22nd.