Breandán Mac Giolla Choille: Breandán Mac Giolla Choille, who has died aged 86, was Deputy Keeper of Public Records and Keeper of State Papers. In the latter capacity, he proposed and effected the first transfer of cabinet papers to archival custody - the transfer of the cabinet records of Dáil Éireann for 1919-1922 to the State Paper Office by the then taoiseach, Jack Lynch.
He also played the leading role in proposing and winning acceptance for the 30-year rule governing access to cabinet records.
The release of the cabinet records led to increased pressure for the release of records of all government departments when they are 30 years old.
A persistent advocate of up-to-date legislation for the conservation of and accessibility to the State's archives records, he had a major hand in the drafting of the National Archives Act of 1986, which, among many other provisions, led to the amalgamation of the Public Record Office and State Paper Office to form the National Archives.
When introducing the Bill in Seanad Éireann, the then taoiseach Garret FitzGerald expressed his particular gratitude and the gratitude of the House to Breandán Mac Giolla Choille, who, he said, had carried the burden of looking after the archives in the most difficult circumstances and who had laid much of the groundwork for the Bill and for the new National Archives.
Born in 1920 in Holywood, Co Down, he was the son of Charles Woodman and his wife Annie (née Lang). He was educated at St Mary's CBS, Belfast, after which he studied English, Irish and history at University College Galway. Awarded a BA in 1942, he later obtained an MA in old and middle Irish.
Joining the civil service in 1944, he and Margaret Griffith were the first two history graduates to be employed by the Public Record Office of Ireland. Situated in the Four Courts, few of the records survived the shelling of the building at the outbreak of the Civil War. Under the Department of Justice, the Public Record Office was neglected and underfunded.
The appointments of Griffith and Mac Giolla Choille appeared to mark a turning point and they determined to bring the office to life. They were particularly interested in acquiring government departmental records. However, senior civil servants were reluctant to make such material available. Progress was slow.
In 1956 Breandán Mac Giolla Choille was promoted to the posts of Keeper of the State Papers and Assistant Deputy Keeper of Public Records, spending most of the following 15 years in the State Papers Office in Dublin Castle, which held the records of the chief secretary's office and associated offices for the period since 1790.
He devoted his energies to making the State papers accessible to the public. Rarely used, the papers dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were still closed to public access. They were gradually made available to the public during the 1960s and restrictions on note-taking were eased and eventually lifted.
Chronically short of staff and without adequate facilities for the material entrusted to him, he constantly sought to convince a succession of governments and senior civil servants of the need for a properly housed and properly staffed national archives service.
He had only limited success with regard to accommodation and the need for a new building remained a major challenge facing the National Archives.
However, a breakthrough with regard to staffing was made in 1973, a couple of years after his appointment as Deputy Keeper of Public Records, when the new taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, accepted a recommendation from the Irish Manuscripts Commission that the professional staff of the Public Record and State Paper Offices be more than doubled from three to eight.
His publications include Intelligence Notes 1913-16, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. He also chronicled transportation from Ireland to Australia in the 19th century and wrote extensively on the Fenians.
Following his retirement from the public service in 1985 he worked at Dún Mhuire, the Franciscan house of studies in Killiney, Co Dublin.
There he sorted and catalogued all the papers of the War of Independence veteran, Seán Mac Eoin, and a substantial part of the Éamon de Valera papers; both sets of papers are now in the UCD archives.
A keen Irish language enthusiast, he perfected his command of the language in Rann na Feirste. As a student at UCG he was auditor of An Cumann Éigse agus Seanchais and he was an early member of An Comhchaidreamh, the graduates' organisation that brought Gael Linn into being.
He also wrote for Comhar and was a member of Bord na Leabhar Gaeilge. He and his wife Éilis (Beití) Ní Dhonnchú raised their children as Irish speakers and were stalwarts of the Irish language movement in Clondalkin where they lived.
His deep religious faith led to his involvement with the Irish-speakers' sodality, Cuallacht Mhuire gan Smál.
A director of Foilseacháin Ábhair Spioradálta, which specialises in spiritual reading, he edited Gaelscrínte san Eoraip by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and he was also editor of the periodical Geamhar.
Other publishing work included editing a series of textbooks for secondary school students, among them a history of Europe by John A Murphy.
A member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission for 10 years, in 1993 an honorary degree was conferred on him by the National University of Ireland.
A voracious reader, he was widely travelled and took his family on camping holidays to the Continent. An accomplished linguist, he spoke French, German and Italian and last year visited Barra in the Outer Hebrides in order to master Scots Gaelic. He was working on a family history in the US at the time of his death.
His wife Éilis, sons Cathal and Niall, and daughters Tríona, Úna and Áine, survive him.
Breandán Mac Giolla Choille: born June 29th, 1920; died October 14th, 2006