Academic, critic and poet Maurice Harmon will turn 90 years old on June 21st 2020. Harmon’s library and archive was transferred to UCD Special Collections in 2016. Harmon has been a towering figure in the field of Anglo Irish literature. The archive reflects the various aspects of Harmon’s work and demonstrates the pivotal role he … Continue reading Maurice Harmon turns 90
Amid the stress and worry of the world we now find ourselves living in, the change of pace over the past few months has offered many of us time to think more deeply about our immediate surroundings. Whether small reflections on the pleasure gained from hearing birdsong more clearly, or noticing the small progressive changes … Continue reading The Last Hour of the Night
In these unprecedented times, people have been sharing poetry as a way to lift the public mood. Seamus Heaney’s words ‘If we can winter this one out, we can summer anywhere’ have offered solace and hope. Derek Mahon’s Everything’s going to be alright was been broadcast to the nation at the end of a news … Continue reading Words True and Kind
February 2nd marks the 138th birthday of UCD’S most famous alumnus, James Joyce, who was born in 1882. UCD Special Collections holds an important collection of Joyce letters and signed editions which are part of a larger collection that belonged to Joyce’s UCD classmate Constantine Curran and his wife Helen Laird Curran. Although these letters … Continue reading Classmates, Correspondents, Counterparts: James Joyce and Conn Curran
Happy New Year to all our followers! We are delighted to welcome you all back to what we hope will be another year of riveting blog posts. So to kick off 2020 let's learn about... Catherine A Murphy was an American academic based a Merrimack College in Massachusetts. Prominent among her academic work was the … Continue reading The Catherine A. Murphy Papers
With the Month of Merriment arriving tomorrow, so too does the tradition of the advent calendar. And here at UCD Cultural Heritage Collections we are not ones to shirk away from tradition! So for the month of December we will be showcasing festive material from UCD Special Collections, National Folklore Collection and UCD Archives on … Continue reading The Holidays are coming!!
The writer Mary Lavin (1912-1996) was born in East Walpole, Massachusetts to Irish parents Thomas and Nora Lavin, and moved to Ireland as a child. Her first short story was written on the reverse of a draft of her PhD thesis on Virginia Woolf, and she went on to become a prolific and celebrated author, … Continue reading Mary Lavin: An insight into the creative process
On October 13th 2019, Cardinal John Henry Newman, first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, will be canonised in Rome. The Catholic University of Ireland (CUI) was opened in 1854 and it is from this institution that University College Dublin traces its origins. The CUI was established as a result of opposition from the … Continue reading Canonisation of Cardinal Newman
Few people need to be convinced about the magnificence of ancient and modern Rome, but for almost two hundred years the magnificence of the eighteenth-century engraver, Giuseppe Vasi da Corleone, went under the radar. In recent decades, scholarly attention has turned to Vasi's life and works. Giuseppe Vasi was born in 1710, in Corleone, Sicily. … Continue reading The Godfather of Engraving
Following his untimely passing in December 2012, the personal library of the poet and critic Dennis O'Driscoll was bequeathed to University College Dublin. His wife, the poet Julie O'Callaghan, facilitated delivery of the extensive collection to UCD Library in 2017. The lion's share of O'Driscoll's library now resides in UCD Special Collections where it forms … Continue reading Dennis O’Driscoll Collection
