Please acknowledge the assistance of The Belfast NewsletterIndex in resulting publications. Such acknowledgement may help to procure funding for future indexing of Irish newspapers.
The Belfast Newsletter, an Irish newspaper that began publication in Belfast in 1737 and continues in business until this day, has good claim to being the oldest continually-published English-language newspaper. This is the first such index to be completed for an Irish newspaper. The Belfast Newsletter was published thrice-weekly during the 18th century, in issues of four pages each. During its time, the Newsletter was seldom equalled in the breadth and quality of its coverage of local and international events.
Every significant word and date in the 20,000 surviving pages of the newspaper was indexed, but not all of the newspapers are still available. In fact, only about one-quarter of the newspapers for the years from 1737 to 1750 have survived, although the run of newspapers is nearly complete from 1750 through 1800 (Click here for a list of surviving newspapers). The final database of information contains nearly 300,000 items of news and advertisements.