The Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich Memorial Library and Archive opened on Moy Road in Armagh in 1999, following a seven-year fundraising effort supported by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. It runs as an independent registered charity rather than under council or state ownership, though it also serves as the archive of the Archdiocese of Armagh. The core collection is built around the books and papers of Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich, who died in 1990, and has grown to around 40,000 published volumes and roughly a kilometre of archive storage holding close to a million documents. Holdings include the Irish Overseas Archive, covering Irish families across Europe from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, manuscript sources for south Ulster Irish-language poetry, and a collection of Gaelic games match programmes and related records. Entry is free, and the reading room is staffed by archivists who direct visitors to material for local and family history research. It closes at weekends, and guided group visits require advance booking.
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