With the development of email, messaging apps and social media it can feel that the art of letter writing will soon become a distant memory. A memory that future generations will assign to their great great grand parents (aka us!) But there are those who are fighting back. Letters of Note is a website dedicated to … Continue reading Write me a letter
UCD Library Special Collections has just completed the cataloguing of a major new W. B. Yeats Collection that it received as a donation in 2015. The interest of the collection stems not only for its contents, but also from the story of how it was gathered together and how it reached UCD Library. From the … Continue reading A Medical Marvel
How often do we take the time to consider the words we use to communicate? What do they reveal about our own history, and cultural heritage? Can one dialectical nuance yield all our secrets? There is a little-known collection within the National Folklore Collection UCD that seeks to shed some light on these complex questions. … Continue reading What’s in a word?
Today being the last day of May, UCD Archives decided to have a look at the collection of a man who was born on the first day of May nearly one hundred years ago, in 1919. This collection is not one that people would usually associate with UCD Archives, but it gives you a flavour … Continue reading And the Oscar goes to…
On 4th May 2018, Irish poet Thomas Kinsella turned 90 years old. An event hosted by the Lord Mayor of Dublin to mark this occasion was held in the Mansion House. UCD Library Special Collections holds the Thomas Kinsella Collection, containing over 700 items including books, pamphlets and ephemera which Kinsella generously donated to UCD … Continue reading Happy Birthday Mr. Kinsella
Dr F.S. Bourke, (1895-1959) medical doctor, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Physicians and bibliographer assembled a private library of some 9,000 items reflecting his interests in Irish history, literature, culture and society over his lifetime until his death in 1959. Francis Stephen Bourke was born on the 14/15th July 1895 in High Street, … Continue reading Bourke the Bibliographer
Whether you’re a crossword lover, a meticulous scholar or simply an ardent logophile, you’ll have had cause at some point in your life to refer to the Oxford English Dictionary. What you might not know is that over 10,000 of the reference quotations used in that tome were seemingly contributed by one Dr. William Chester … Continue reading A Man of Many, Many Words…
UCD Archives is delighted to launch our new online exhibition 'The Finest Men Alive': Documents of Imprisonment and Protest. This exhibition examines the documents created by those arrested and imprisoned following the 1916 Easter Rising, firstly in Dublin and then various prisons throughout the UK until the general amnesty of June 1917. Their feelings, thoughts … Continue reading ‘Finest Men Alive’
So boasts the publicity poster for that cinematic ‘classic’ Darby O’Gill and the Little People, released by Walt Disney Productions in 1959, and detailing the adventures of a wily Irishman as he tries to outwit a local band of leprechauns. Long recognised as a quintessential representation of stage ‘Oirishness’ it starred Albert Sharpe as the … Continue reading ‘It’s a wonderful world of love, laughter, and leprechauns’
Greetings and welcome to the first post on our new and sparkly UCD Library Cultural Heritage Collections Blog!! As the Undertones say 'Here comes the summer!' When the sunshine breaks through during the summer a whole range and style of fashion, usually full of bright colours, is unleashed. But how would you feel if these … Continue reading Here Comes the Sun!