As time passes and we move further away from specific moments and events, nuance is lost. An historical narrative is written and in it incidents may be omitted and periods of time compressed so that a story can be neatly told. This is the nature of history-telling for the most part - condensing the story … Continue reading Ephemeral Arteries: Connecting with our past through ‘disposable’ artefacts
While legal and religious factors have long guided our moral compass, our traditional code of right and wrong has also been informing individual conduct for a considerable amount of time. In oral tradition, particular behaviours deemed to be unacceptable are often followed by examples of what happens when this code is ignored. Among the prohibitions … Continue reading Holy Wells and Sacred Trees: Interference with the natural world
That might seem an odd question, since the Proclamation of the Irish Republic is probably Ireland’s best-known historical document: and anyway, isn’t there only one? The answer is both yes, and no. Let’s start with the story behind the Proclamation, which is quite well known, but here’s a quick summary: In the years since it … Continue reading Do you have a favourite Proclamation?
UCD Digital Library has made available online a new collection entitled Irregular News: Civil War and Republican ephemera. This collection contains a rich store of primary source material relating to the revolutionary period. This material was collected by the Irish Franciscans and was originally held in their friary on Merchants Quay, which is located across … Continue reading Irregular News: Civil War and Republican ephemera
‘... the children, at the first hint of Spring, cast down the toys bought for them at Christmas, and came out to play in the open air — out to play all the games I knew so well. I noticed how little the games and rhymes had changed since I played here, the tunes remained … Continue reading Games I Play
This next instalment of our Decade of Centenaries series comes from the unpublished draft of Máire Comerford’s memoirs. Máire Comerford was born on 29 June 1893 in Rathdrum, County Wicklow. She was educated privately at home but with a downturn in the family’s fortune, she was sent to London to receive an education as a … Continue reading My narrative has gone on paper hot from memory
UCD Special Collections holds several manuscripts written by the 19th century antiquarian John O’Donovan. Of these manuscripts, perhaps the most intriguing is one entitled Description and historical illustrations of the round towers and other contemporaneous ecclesiastical remains in Ireland [UCD MS 49]. It also holds a collection of correspondence between O’Donovan and his friend and … Continue reading John O’Donovan Manuscripts in UCD Special Collections
From the 1970s and 80s, a strong tradition of musical subcultures has developed in Ireland, exerting a strong influence on musical subcultures outside of Ireland. Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher and Horslips all laid down the foundations for hard rock and heavy metal, while the world of punk had Johnny Rotten (real name John Lydon) and … Continue reading Music Subcultures in Ireland
If you are lucky enough to have created and tended a vegetable patch during lockdown, you may be getting ready to harvest your potato crop of earlies round about now. The Irish, in particular, have an affinity for the potato which, in the 1840s, lead to a very dark time in Irish history; The Great … Continue reading Ireland will never never recover
Dublin-born poet and author Austin Clarke (1896 - 1974) amassed a large personal library during his lifetime. Encompassing prose, poetry, drama, literary criticism and biography, this collection of publications is now part of the Poetry Ireland Library, housed in UCD Special Collections. As well as revealing much about Clarke’s own reading interests and the type … Continue reading By the Cover: Dust Jackets and the Austin Clarke Collection