Three centuries of port records
The history of Dublin’s port administration is preserved in an archive stretching back to 1707. The Ballast Board name belongs to that early period; the Dublin Port and Docks Board followed in 1867. These changing institutions reflect the long relationship between the city and its working waterfront.
The port’s archive preserves engineering drawings, photographs, registers and employee records. Its employee Name Book covers 1906–1925, offering a way to investigate the people behind the docks as well as the infrastructure.
Dublin Port appointed a full-time archivist in 2017. Its digital archive provides a route into the port’s historical collections; archive photographs have their own reuse conditions.