RTÉ and UCD have announced a partnership for the long-term preservation of a unique archive of national cultural importance.
The Public Service Broadcaster maintains and preserves the largest archive of Irish audio-visual material in the world.
The archive comprises radio and television programmes, still images, production files, scripts, music scores and manuscripts.
As part of its archive holdings, the RTÉ Corporate Written Archives comprise a major repository of both corporate materials and documents of a national cultural importance.
Some of the materials date to the 1920s and include a unique collection of primary source documents for research.
RTÉ said it now wishes to ensure the long-term preservation and access of the documents of unique national cultural importance.
The partnership with the University means the UCD Archives will be the custodians of the RTÉ Collection of Cultural Documents.
In all, the collection comprises approximately 1,200 Irish language radio scripts, 1,800 to 2,000 English language radio scripts and about 6,000 Radio Drama scripts, some of which are in manuscript form.
The collection includes material from Samuel Beckett, Austin Clarke, Mary Lavin, Máirtín Ó Cadhain and many other distinguished Irish writers and commentators.
RTÉ said the collection constitutes a coherent and comprehensive account of the output of Radio Éireann between the 1940s and the early 1960s, and also offers insights into contemporary interest, opinion and preoccupation.
Speaking today at the announcement of the partnership the RTÉ Director-General, Cathal Goan said:
'In many ways RTÉ has been, since its beginning, the keeper of our collective national memory. In the tapes, scripts and images lie the stories of how our country has changed across the 20th and 21st centuries.
'For archives to be truly valuable they must not only be dynamic and but also accessible. It is for this reason that RTÉ has entered into this partnership with UCD to ensure that these important national cultural documents, in both Irish and English, can be maintained and accessible to all, free of charge, so as to help us better understand our past, present and future.
'RTÉ is extremely grateful to our now retired Executive Archivist Brian Lynch for his unstinting efforts in collecting and preserving this material for posterity.
'Thanks to Brian's diligence this unique collection embodying Irish cultural heritage can now be safeguarded into the future and made available for countless researchers.
'RTÉ is delighted to enter into agreement with UCD to ensure that these materials will be made accessible to all. I hope this is the beginning of a very successful partnership.'
