Peamont Sanatorium Archives (including the Women's National Health Association of Ireland Archives)- Preservation and Access Project (360G-Wellcome-087553_Z_08_A)

The project involves arranging, packing and cataloguing the archives of Peamount Sanatorium, the most important sanatorium and tuberculosis hospital in Ireland, which functioned between 1912 and 2004, and the archives of the Women's National Health Association of Ireland, founded in 1907 by Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Irish Lord Lieutenant, to promote public health. The Women's National Health Association was instrumental in founding Peamount Sanatorium. Both collections are presently stored on the Peamount Hospital site which continues to operate as a medical facility. The archives of the sanatorium, consisting of some 800 archival boxes, commence in 1912 and represent the largest surviving collection of records of a tuberculosis hospital in Ireland. The collection comprises several hundred bound volumes, 40,000 patient index cards and 30,000 patient files. The archives of the Women's National Health Association of Ireland, consisting of some 100 archival boxes, commence in 1905 and relate to the wide range of health initiatives with which it was involved. The bulk of these records are presently stored in conditions that are not conducive to long term preservation or research access, and require safeguarding by being placed in archival custody. The National Archives seeks funding to permit the retention of the services of a qualified archivist for two years. The project would be given general oversight and direction by a project team from the National Archives, to which the archives will be transferred. It is intended that there will be an initial records conservation survey by a conservator and the collection would receive appropriate conservation treatment at a later stage.