National libraries in EU countries including Britain, Germany and Spain have urged Ireland to begin archiving Irish website content — or risk creating a “digital black hole” in the country’s history.

In a response to a public consultation by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht on extending the scope of “legal deposit” to include digital material, libraries from several countries pointed out that most web pages have a lifespan of less than 100 days but no one is archiving websites with a .ie address.