Waterford City and County Archives Service is an amalgamation of the City Archives in High Street, Waterford and the County Archives in Dungarvan Library, Dungarvan. The City and County Archive holds the records of local authorities in Waterford City and County, past and present and also holds private collections relating to the City and County Waterford.
Archives are unique records of decisions, actions and memories and come in all formats, including, paper, digital and audio-visual. Archives provide evidence of human actions and the importance of archives has been recognised in the Universal Declaration on Archives which was adopted by the 36th Session of the General Conference of UNESCO on 10th November 2011.
Visiting the Archives
The City and County Archive welcomes all visitors to the Archive and the Archivist and staff will provide every assistance that they can to identify the records that will be of interest to you for your research. However, the staff cannot do research on your behalf.
Members of the public may view the archives and may carry out research in accordance with the rules laid down by the archivist to ensure the safety of the archives. We also maintain a Facebook page and a set of presentations on Slideshare.
Donating and Depositing Archives
Copyright is a legal right over "intellectual property" . It restricts the right to reproduce any original work by an individual or organisation. Permission from the copyright owner must be sought to reproduce/publish their work. The records in the City and County Archive can be consulted for private study or research but copyright permission must be sought if you intend to reproduce or publish any of the archives in the City and County Archive. In the case of the local authority records in the City and County Archive you can apply to the Archivist for permission to publish.
The City and County Archive may not hold copyright ownership on private collections and you are responsible for gaining copyright permission to reproduce or publish from these collections and for any failure to comply with copyright legislation. A copy of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 can be found here.
The images used on the website are copyright and cannot be used without permission. The City and County Archive has made every effort to acknowledge copyright owners and the Archivist would appreciate it if any copyright owner not acknowledged on the website would get in contact so that this can be rectified.
Accessing Personal Information
Waterford City and County Archives Service holds collections of records that sometimes contain personal information about individuals and it is the policy of Waterford City and County Archive Service not to release any personal information until 100 years old. This is in compliance with the Data Protection Act, 1988 and the Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003.
It can be tempting to assume that when a record is closed to access there are deep, dark secrets being hidden but personal information can simply refer to the name and address of a person.
The goal of the Archive Services is to provide access to information and in the case of personal information it is still possible to access these records provided you are the person to whom they relate or that you have the permission of the person to whom they relate. If the person to whom the records relate is deceased then you must provide evidence in the form of their Death Certificate to gain access to the records. If you are researching your family history and you would like to access records you believe relate to your family then you must provide the evidence of your research showing your connection to the person/s in the records.
The Archive Service will facilitate researchers in as far as possible to help identify if the records relate to their family but cannot provide access to personal information without certainty that the records are definitely relating to the family in question. In cases where this is uncertain the records will not be accessible.
If you have any queries about accessing personal information or any of the collections in the Archives please contact the Archivist at archivist@waterfordcouncil.ie
Collecting Policy of Waterford City and County Archive
The City and County Archive works to preserve collections of archives relating to the history and development of Waterford City and County. The records are stored in environmentally controlled conditions and care is taken to ensure they are stored and handled in a manner that ensures their long-term preservation. The goal of the City and County Archive is not only to ensure the preservation of its records but also to make these records available to researchers in Waterford and beyond.
In general, it is the policy of the City and County Archive to collect related groups of records rather than individual items, as this ensures that the records can provide a more complete and accurate picture of an organisation, business, family estate or institution. Also, the research value of the records may be diminished if they are removed from their original source. If you have a collection of material that you feel is of historic interest in relation to the City and County of Waterford, then please contact the Archivist.
058-21144
Archivist : Joanne Rothwell
archivist@waterfordcouncil.ie