Overview of Collections

Cork has a long and proud history which is reflected in its surviving local archives. We began acquiring archives from Cork city and county in 1972 and we now preserve one of Cork's largest and most important cultural heritage assets, and one of the largest and richest sets of local archives in Ireland, spanning over 400 years, and more, of history. The collection is of local, regional, national and international significance.

We are the designated archives service for local archives from Cork City and County. 

Our collections comprise:  1) Archives from 41 defunct Cork local government and health bodies, for example, the Grand Jury, Youghal Corporation, Poor Law Unions, Town Councils, Vocational Education Committees, Hospitals and Homes, Boards of Health, Boards of Public Assistance, Cork Harbour Commissioners.   2) Archives from Cork City Council and Cork County Council.   3) Archives that have been acquired by donation, purchase, bequest or loan, such as personal and family papers, landed estates, trade unions, clubs and societies, schools, businesses, religious bodies, photographers. 

It is important to note that the CCCA does not create the archive collections held. Each archive collection or 'fonds' held here is a unique set of records generated by an organisation or person in the course of their activities, selected for preservation and deposited in the CCCA.  A collection may consist of just 1 item, or up to thousands of items. Several hundred thousand items are preserved here, residing in almost 1,500 archival collections. An item can be as small as, for example, a single letter or photograph, or it can be as large as a thick administrative file or a bound volume containing hundreds of pages, or a large photographic album.

Almost 900 of these collections have been fully catalogued at item level to international standards and are available for research, mainly in hard copy by appointment in our Research Room. The lists of the contents of these collections is available in our Online Catalogue and links to online descriptive lists for several larger collections are also available to read as 'Flippingbooks', in our Guide section. 

Several thousand images/pages selected from various collections, are also available to view online in our Online Digital Collections. and our Online Catalogue database. For more details of our collections see the Guide and search our online catalogue. Please note that over 100 of the entries in the online catalogue are at collection level only, with the lists of the items in these collections available separately.