I hope that all readers of Irish in the American Civil War enjoyed a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2020 promises to be a significant one in the history of the site; the month of May will mark the tenth anniversary of the website’s establishment, and it is also this year that sees the site move beyond both 1,000,000 visits and 1,000,000 words of free content. There will be more on these milestones in the future, but for now I wanted to share with readers news received from the National Library of Ireland in December. Since 2011, the NLI has been identifying Irish websites to preserve and make accessible for research, as part of their Web Archive. They have now decided to include Irish in the American Civil War as part of that archive, which means that no matter what may occur in the future, a fully functioning iteration of the website will always be available as part of the national collections. It is gratifying news that the content produced up to this date will have this “ultimate backup”, and will be available for consultation and use long after I am no longer able to maintain it. If you are interesting in checking out what is currently available on the NLI’s Web Archive, you can do so here.

The research that is made available on the Irish American Civil War website is entirely self-financed. If you would like to support the work and upkeep of this site you can do so via my Patreon site for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/irishacw, or by making a one-off donation to the site’s running costs via the “Donate” button in the right-hand sidebar.