Records are generally defined as documents created or received by persons or organisations in the course of a business process or other activity and set aside or kept for informational, accounting or evidential purposes.  Archives are generally defined as aggregations of such records that have been appraised as meriting permanent preservation.   Archives are our documentary heritage.   "Archives" is also frequently taken to mean a place in which archives are preserved.  In order to avoid confusion between such  places and their holdings, therefore, they are frequently referred to as "archives services" or as "archival institutions".  According to the most recent edition of the Directory of Irish Archives*there are 262 such entities on the island of Ireland including those of schools, religious congregations, dioceses and churches, local authorities,  hospitals and charitable organisations, the National Archives in Dublin and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast.

* Directory of Irish Archives, edited by Seamus Helferty and Raymond Refausé, Dublin (2003)