RTÉ is Ireland’s National Public Service Broadcaster, a non profit-making organisation owned by the Irish people. RTÉ is Ireland’s cross-media leader, providing comprehensive and costeffective free-to-air television, radio and online services, which are of the highest quality and impartiality, in accordance with RTÉ’s statutory obligations.
As Ireland’s Public Service Broadcaster, RTÉ has been producing and curating broadcast materials for eight decades. The RTÉ Libraries and Archives collections consist of radio and television programmes, still images, production files, scripts, music scores and manuscripts. Collectively the RTÉ Archives encompass the history and culture of Public Service Broadcasting in Ireland from the advent of radio in 1926 through to the arrival of the first television service in 1962. These collections offer a unique and important record of Irish life and continue to be augmented every day. The RTÉ Archives also contain archive objects that pre-date the Broadcasting era, acquired via donors and other sources. Archive programming content is widely used in all of RTÉ’s broadcast output, schedules and platforms. Output from a special Archive production unit, set up in 2003, involves high-end restoration and digital re-mastering of archive programmes from film and video-tape for re-broadcast, as well as providing the basis for new programming using archive content.