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Supporting researchers at the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library

Researchers at work in M&ARL
Research in progress

As the end of another busy year approaches, this blog highlights some of the ways in which the Manuscripts and Archives Research Library (M&ARL) supports researchers. It is based on departmental statistics collected during the past five years (2011-2015). These show that the department provides a variety of local and remote services to national and international researchers from diverse backgrounds. M&ARL’s services support teaching, learning and research in Trinity College Dublin, and across the globe. Continue reading “Supporting researchers at the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library”

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Changed Utterly: recording and reflecting on the Rising 1916 –2016

The Proclamation TCD Papyrus Case 16 no.1
The Proclamation TCD Papyrus Case 16 no.1

The Library of Trinity College Dublin has launched a Long Room exhibition to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising. Changed Utterly: recording and reflecting on the Rising 1916 –2016 will run from 1 March to the end of April.

The exhibition features exhibits of unique material from Trinity’s Manuscripts & Archives Research Library and Early Printed Books collections relating to the 1916 Easter Rising, including photographs, diaries, memorabilia as well as digital content. The display will trace methods of recording and reflecting on the Rising from the initial scramble to record the events as they happened in 1916; the commemorative activity of 1966 and through to the Library’s current project to capture and preserve the 1916 related websites produced in 2016.

Silver cup presented to Cadet R N Tweedy of the Dublin University Officer Training corps for service during 1916. TCD MUN/OBJ/25
Silver cup presented to Cadet R N Tweedy of the Dublin University Officer Training Corps for service during 1916. TCD MUN/OBJ/25

Highlights of the exhibition include:

  • The Library’s copy of the Proclamation, said to have been torn from the walls of the GPO, along with the World War I recruitment posters found pasted to the back
  • Photograph of British Troops in the Front Square of Trinity College Dublin
  • The scrapbook of Elsie Mahaffy, daughter of Trinity Provost John Pentland Mahaffy, and occupant of the Provost’s house during the Rising
  • Silver cup presented to a member of the Dublin University Officer Training corps for service during 1916
  • The casing of a bullet which pierced the roof of the Library during Easter week 1916.

    The casing of a bullet which pierced the roof of the Library of Trinity College Dublin during Easter week 1916
    The casing of a bullet which pierced the roof of the Library of Trinity College Dublin during Easter week 1916

The items displayed all appear on the Library’s popular 1916 blog project Changed Utterly – Ireland and the Easter Rising.

The exhibition also showcases the work of the Library’s 1916 Web Archiving project which sees the Library working in collaboration with the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford and the British Library to archive websites from both the Irish and UK web domains as they reflect on the 1916 Easter Rising.

Photograph of Troops in Front Square TCD/MUN/MC/207
Photograph of Troops in the Front Square of Trinity College Dublin TCD/MUN/MC/207

The exhibition and web-archiving project are part of the Library’s contribution to the Trinity College Dublin Decade of Commemoration.

 

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Soldiering on

WWIThis Saturday, 12 July, Trinity College Dublin is playing host to the ‘WWI Roadshow’ in partnership with RTÉ Radio 1 and the National Library of Ireland. This consists of a series of events throughout the campus designed to explore Ireland’s role in the Great War. Of particular interest is a lecture to be given by Jane Maxwell, of the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, entitled ‘Manage to exist and try and be cheerful’: sources in Trinity College Library’s Manuscript Collections for the History of the First World War. The talk will take place in the Long Room Hub at 10.15am and is part of a series of pop-up talks and lectures scheduled throughout the day.

In her talk Jane will cover subjects such as the logistics of warfare in Mesopotamia (which required the transportation of camels by boat and baking bread outdoors in the desert); Molly Childers’ charitable work in aid of Belgian refugees, among others, (for which she received the MBE); and drawings of the first occasion in history in which zeppelins, sea planes, submarines and ships of war were deployed together.

IMG_7715Also of interest is the exhibition, with the same name, curated by Aisling Lockhart, which has just been installed for the occasion in the Long Room. This exhibition showcases diaries, photographs, drawings and letters, belonging to servicemen and their families, which are housed in M&ARL.

The Department of Early Printed Books have curated a Francis Ledwidge display in the Berkeley Library for the Roadshow.

Saturday’s programme of free events also includes music, poetry and drama events in the Chapel, Great War-related history tours of the campus, cooking demonstrations of ‘the food of WW1’, and a ‘Last Cricket Match of Peace’. The day will finish with the final bugle call of ‘The Last Post’ and ‘Reveille’.

WWI dress medals MS-EX-12_063The World War 1 Roadshow forms part of Trinity’s engagement with the Decade of Commemorations celebrations. A new website has been launched outlining College’s activities marking the Decade of Commemoration.

Estelle Gittins

The talk ‘Manage to exist and try and be cheerful’: sources in Trinity College Library’s Manuscript Collections for the History of the First World War takes place at 10.15am on Saturday 12 July in the Long Room Hub, Fellows’ Square.

The exhibition ‘Manage to exist and try and be cheerful’ will be on show for the next two months in the Long Room, Trinity College Library.

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Mahaffy and Music

MS2387_vi

John Pentland Mahaffy is renowned as one of the more colourful characters in the history of Trinity College Dublin. A classicist who ended his career as Provost (1914-1919), his interest in music is less well known but had considerable beneficial impact on the development of the Library’s music collections.

Gall V 9 40

When Sir Robert Prescott Stewart died in 1894 it was Mahaffy who proposed to the Board that Ebenezer Prout should succeed him as Professor of Music, submitting several of Prout’s books on music theory as testimonials. Prout held the post until his death in December 1909, and in his will stipulated that Trinity College should be given the option of purchasing his extensive music library “at a reasonable price”. Prout had valued the collection at £1000, but Mahaffy on behalf of the College agreed to buy it for half that amount. He raised over £300 from friends for the purpose, and the Board supplied the remainder. The Bursar paid a further £60 out of College funds for a new bookcase to house the collection: this was placed down the centre of the Long Room where it remained until the 1960s, when the collection was transferred to the Berkeley Library basement and the bookcase was removed to the basement of Townley Hall.

Prout M 45

This was Mahaffy’s most important contribution to the Library’s music holdings, but it was not the first. In June 1903 he had paid 30 shillings for the manuscript of ‘Caractacus’ by the Earl of Mornington, written in 1764, the year of Mornington’s appointment as the first Professor of Music. The manuscript is currently on display in the ‘In Tune’ exhibition.

Mahaffy may also have had a hand in the deposit of James Goodman’s collection of folk tunes in 1897. When the Irish folk music scholar Donal O’Sullivan attempted to consult the Goodman collection in the 1940s he discovered that the terms of the deposit stipulated that the volumes could only be seen in the presence of Professor Mahaffy. As Mahaffy had died in 1919, it was found necessary to make contact with Goodman’s grandson, who formally presented the manuscripts to the College in September 1944.

In Tune, sponsored by KBC Bank, runs until April 2014.The exhibition is also available online.Full details of the accompanying lecture series are available here.

Roy Stanley

Music Librarian

You can listen to an interview with Roy Stanley about the In Tune exhibition on the Arena show on RTE Radio 1 14 January 2014. The interview begins at 23.30.