Records of many kinds have been kept in Ireland since the Middle Ages. Unfortunately fire, carelessness and theft have caused the loss and destruction of much of this material. Many records of the Court of Chancery were lost by fire in 1304. In the mid 1530s, records maintained in Dublin Castle became so subject to pilfering that they were moved to the more secure Bermingham Tower, which then became the main repository of Irish records; unfortunately it burned down in 1758 with the loss of many documents. Other records had already been lost in 1711 when another fire, this time in the Customs House, destroyed books belonging to the Surveyor General. The creation of the Commission of Public Records in 1810 made provision for the systematic collation and archiving of national records. The Public Record Office was opened in 1867 and from then until around 1922, the Office was the centre for the collection and cataloguing of national records. Unfortunately, this building suffered devastating damage during the Civil War in 1922 and many records were destroyed, in particular the nineteenth century census returns, Church of Ireland parish records and the enormous collection of original wills. In the years following this loss, great efforts were made to unearth substitutes and many of the gaps can now be filled through the use of secondary material collections - partial transcripts or abstracts, researchers' notes, census substitutes etc. In 1988, the Public Record Office was amalgamated with the State Paper Office and renamed the National Archives of Ireland. In 1992, it moved from its old home in the grounds of the Four Courts to new custom-built premises in Bishop Street. One further factor also needs to be borne in mind by any genealogical researcher. Northern Ireland was established in 1921 and the Irish Free State in 1922. Some of the records concerning the six counties, which were previously held in Dublin, were moved to the North - so a researcher may have to follow such records, although copies of most of the records moved can still be found in Dublin. Some anomalies do still exist, such as the fact that the Census Records covering the six counties for 1911 are still covered by the 100 year rule North of the border but these census records including the six counties are freely available in the South. While many people assume that all Irish records have been lost or destroyed, that is just not the case. From the point of view of genealogy, the most significant losses from the 1922 Ireland Public Record Office fire was the 19th-century census returns, the Church of Ireland parish registers, and the testamentary collections. Other records not maintained in the PRO have survived, however, including civil records of births, marriages, and deaths, non Church of Ireland parish records, property records, and later censuses. Even for much of the material that was lost, there are abstracts, transcripts, and fragments of the originals.