Ireland’s Undiscovered Past
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📜 Ireland 1485–1798: Colonial Laboratory?
📅 Date: Friday, 26 September 2025
🕑 Time: 14:00 – 15:00 BST / 6:00 AM – 7:00 AM PDT
🧭 Location: Online | Hosted by The National Archives
In this thought-provoking lecture, Neil Johnston, Head of Early Modern Records at The National Archives, explores how Ireland was used as a testing ground for colonial governance during the early expansion of English power.
From the 1530s onward, religious and political reforms shattered a centuries-old settlement between English rulers and native Irish elites. As the English Crown imposed centralized authority, a new class of English-born governors, soldiers, and administrators came to dominate Irish society—paving the way for institutionalized colonization.
Johnston’s talk will trace how these policies met fierce resistance, and how the tactics used in Ireland—surveillance, forced reform, and displacement—would later be replicated across the British Empire.
This session also highlights the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, an ambitious international digital humanities project that seeks to digitally reconstruct Ireland’s lost archival heritage, destroyed in 1922 during the Irish Civil War.
Free admission • Virtual event • Registration required
Hosted by The National Archives, United Kingdom
Discover an ever-changing world of subversion and espionage over MI5’s 115-year history in a ground-breaking exhibition that will take you behind the scenes of one of Britain’s most iconic institutions.
The National Archives is the official archive and publisher for the UK government and for England and Wales. It is the guardian of some of the nation’s most iconic national documents, dating back over 1,000 years.
The National Archives is a non-ministerial department.
