Although anathema to domain experts, it is unfortunately the case that students of history can graduate with an honors degree without ever handling or analyzing archival materials. Archives are unique resources--ranging from official state documents to personal papers--that have the potential to enrich historical research immeasurably. Access to repositories by large groups of people can be difficult--for example, both the National Archives of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland Manuscripts division, for conservation and preservation reasons, cannot meaningfully cater for groups larger than fifteen at a time. Difficulties associated with busy undergraduate timetables also contribute to why archival visits to off-campus locations can be a rarity for several programs. To address this problem at their institution, the authors used digital surrogates of archival materials to give students a practice-based learning (PBL) experience, allowing them to transcribe and interact with the records in a classroom setting. In this article, they discuss the challenges associated with applying PBL in archives to "Health, Gender, State, and Irish Medical Care, 1837-1948," an elective module offered to fourth-year students at the University of Limerick in Autumn 2018.