National Inventory of Architectural Heritage

The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) maintains a central database of the architectural heritage of the Republic of Ireland covering the period since 1700 in complement to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, which focuses on archaeological sites of the pre-1700 period.

[1][2] The unit was founded in 1990 to address the obligations of the Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe of which Ireland is signatory.

[3] Initially, the NIAH existed only on a non-statutory basis with the task to create and maintain an inventory of to be protected buildings and sites.

The legal framework for the NIAH was established with the Architectural Heritage (National Inventory) and Historic Monuments (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1999[4] which introduced access rights to the interior of buildings for the NIAH and preservation obligations for the local planning authorities.

[9] In 2001, then minister Síle de Valera used the result of these surveys to recommend the inclusion of 2,155 buildings in the record of protected structures by the respective planning authorities.