Historical Hansards: Completing the Jigsaw
The project will take more than 50 years of debates from the Upper Chamber of the Northern Ireland Parliament from 1921 to 1972, the Senate Hansard, and make it available online. The debates are wide-ranging in nature concerning the socio-economic and political development of a sometimes troubled part of the United Kingdom over a period of dramatic change. It takes a resource underused by scholars due to the paucity of analogue copies, and the complexity of the printer material, and through innovative search and browse techniques makes it central to the development of Irish Studies in the 21st century.
The proejct meets a clear demand amongst scholars in England and Wales for research material relating to the Northern Ireland that they simply do not have access to. The Senate Hansard will be linked to the AHRC-funded House of Commons Hansard e-resource and the latter will be updated and enhanced. The project will add value to the collections by geo-referencing the place names with coordinates, and enabling visualisation of the debates over time and by place through a mash-up with an appropriate web service. Thus the combined resource will be more valuable that its component parts and it will complete the digital availability of historical parliamentary debates for the British Isles.
Lead site: King’s College London
Download Project Plan Here (PDF)