The records of the Irish chancery were destroyed in an explosion in the Public Record Office of Ireland at the Four Courts, Dublin, in 1922.

A Calendar of Irish Chancery Letters (CIRCLE) seeks to provide a reconstruction of these important records. It will bring together all known letters enrolled on the Irish chancery rolls during the Middle Ages (1244–1509) using copies, transcripts and calendars ranging in date from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries and located in various archival repositories in Ireland, England and the U.S.A. The final version of CIRCLE will be launched in June 2011.

The records being reconstructed as part of this project are of the first importance for researchers in a range of historical disciplines. The Irish chancery was the secretariat of the English administration in Ireland during the Middle Ages. Its formal existence can be dated to 1232. The Irish chancery emulated the practice of the chancery of England by keeping copies of letters issued in the name of English king; transcripts of these letters 'enrolled' on long strips of parchment known as the chancery rolls. The chancery produced two series of enrolments: patent and close rolls. These rolls are notably eclectic in their contents, and many items that in England would have been hived off into other classes of record―charters, fines, writs of liberate, writs of parliamentary summons, even the occasional return from an inquisition post mortem―are found instead on the patent rolls or close rolls.

A pilot CIRCLE website was launched in June 2010 (http://www.irishchancery.net/). At present CIRCLE contains over 3000 reconstructed chancery letters for the reign of Richard II (1377–99). The website also offers links to a digitized version of the Latin Calendar of Irish Chancery Rolls (RCH), edited by Edward Tresham and published by the Record Commission of Ireland in 1828, as well as many images of sample manuscripts from the collection of the Pembroke Estate Papers, stored in the National Archives of Ireland.

In addition, the website contains a detailed Historical Introduction, which explores the nature of the source material and its importance for a range of historical researchers. The Historical Introduction traces the history of the destruction of the original rolls from the Middle Ages to 1922, and explains how the process of reconstruction is being carried out. The project Style Book is also available for consultation: it sets out the editorial conventions of the project.

The Irish Chancery Project is being carried out at the Otway-Ruthven Centre for Medieval History, Trinity College Dublin, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (IRCHSS).