Compiling this edition devoted to Ireland specifically the twenty-six county Republic of Ireland, has been possible for a number of reasons. First, since the mid to late 1980s, there has been a broadening of the focus of historical research in Irish universities beyond the national project, state-making and nation-building. Second, although there were extensive repositories of business and other relevant archives in Ireland, not least in the Public Record Office in Northern Ireland (PRONI) which became a "byword for administrative efficiency and an enlightened collections policy", it was not until the passage of the National Archives Act in 1986 and the opening of the National Archives of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland in 1991, that a national repository was established. Thus the work of individual historians, archivists, the Irish Economic and Social History Society established in 1970 and the Irish Manuscripts Commission which undertook the first survey of business records in the Republic of Ireland also in 1970, was rewarded with a dedicated premises, cataloguing resources and organised collecting policy.