The main objective of this project is to conduct a socio-economic analysis of public policy and human development in Ireland from 1847, using the SSISI e-Archive as primary source. OPSIT is an acronym of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland’s motto ‘Our Pole Star is Truth’. After the Irish famine, the need for a statistical society brought people together from government, public administration and universities to discuss economic and social policies. The Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (SSISI) was originally driven by a belief that good public policies can only result from the scientific objectivity provided by statistics. Since 1847, the Society organised six or so public meetings each year at which presented papers were then discussed in open forum. Since May 2007, the Society‘s 160-year proceedings have been available in its annual journal. (see TCD Tara Archive:- www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/1080) We wish to use this archive’s data, supplemented by government and non-governmental sources, to construct a Quality of Life Index between 1847-2007. This will form the statistical backdrop to our analysis of public policy and human development. We will construct 10 constituent indicators to represent:- material wellbeing; health; political stability and security; family life; community life; climate and geography; job security; political freedom; gender equality; and, education levels. The project team consists of experts on Irish demographics, industrialisation, geography, political economy of public policy and international development to understand Ireland’s socio-economic evolution, and also concurrently extrapolate possible lessons for developing countries. The wealth of the resource lies in that civil servants and academics of the day made on-the-record contributions to policy debates, supplemented by statistical analysis. This innovative project utilises inter-disciplinary and cross-institutional expertise and exploits cutting-edge advances in digital library systems as a means not only to produce accessible and valuable resource output (i.e. a Digital Public Policy Archive) but also to provide a stepping stone and a template for further linked research. Overall, the project will link the discourse of policy makers and practitioners, statistical indicators, policy and legislative impacts, and provide illuminating lessons for both national and international audiences.