Record Tower etching

Sir,—In their article examining the origins of the Public Records Office (HI 28.3, May/June 2020) Peter Crooks and Ciarán Wallace failed to mention the ‘Reports from the Commissioners appointed by His Majesty to execute the measures recommended in an address of the House of Commons respecting the Public Records of Ireland’. The Reports were printed by order of the House of Commons from 1813 to 1815. While not mentioned in the article, the etching of the Record Tower of Dublin Castle is in fact a detail of one of two etchings of the Record Tower included in the Reports. This detail is a vertical section through the tower but with the identifying notes missing. The etching from which the detail was taken was drawn by the architect Francis Johnson, and has plans of each of the four floors of the Record Tower. Also included is an etching of a beautifully executed drawing, ‘South View of the Record Tower from the Lower Yard of the Castle of Dublin’, by the artist William Flavelle.—Yours etc.,

CIARAN J. COSTELLO
Limerick