The building’s external architectural expression announced the importance of its function; granite walls dressed in a restrained classicism which speaks of responsibility, seriousness, tradition, and permanence. The centrally-placed reading room, with its coved glazed roof, provided not only a highly suitable space for consulting archives, but a space whose architectural austerity amplified the dignity and importance of that activity. And then there was the Treasury – a fantastically innovative space in which cutting edge technology and the materials of the age of Railways – iron and glass – were deployed to enclose and preserve the memory of a nation.

Within days, staff of the Public Record Office began the momentous task of retrieving the records from the rubble. Gathering documents found amongst the ruins, staff sorted and identified them. In just under a year they packed 25,000 sheets of paper and parchment into nearly 400 bundles. However, it would be a century before staff of the National Archives would begin working on these salved records.

By 1923, the Public Record Office building was sufficiently repaired to allow staff to resumed working on site. Reconstruction works then started on a more modest replacement building. This building is now occupied by the Court of Appeal to the front and the National Archives to the rear and basement.

The Irish Architectural Archive would like to thank Orlaith McBride, Zoe Reid, Karen Downey and Hazel Menton of the National Archives, and Dara Lynne Lenehan and Brian Hickey of Epic.