Research Collections at Trinity
New tales from the Old Library, Trinity College Dublin
As part of Heritage Week 2019 (17-25 August) the Library is hosting a public lecture, on 20 August, on its collection of 19th-century military paintings. Continue reading “Public Lecture – Captain Smith’s Military Paintings”
The Library is digitising apocalypse manuscripts like there’s no tomorrow. The Dublin Apocalypse (TCD MS 64) contains the Latin text of the Book of Revelation, heavily decorated with 73 vibrant miniatures, and you can now see the Final Judgement in gold and vivid colour on our Digital Collections.
The imaging of this volume was completed to coincide with a one-day symposium based on the Dublin Apocalypse, taking place in the Neill Lecture Theatre of the Trinity Long Room Hub on Friday, 1 February 2019 from 9.45am. The event will draw together experts in their fields to discuss multiple aspects of the Dublin Apocalypse and its broader context. Attendance at what is sure to be an fascinating event is free but registration is essential at https://dublinapocalypse.eventbrite.ie.
Nigel Morgan, Professor Emeritus of the University of Cambridge, will discuss the iconography of the manuscript through an art historical lens. Michael Michael’s and Frederica Law-Turner’s papers will cast light on the Ormesby Psalter and delve into the East Anglian school of manuscripts. James T. Palmer, of the University of St Andrews, will study the circulation, interpretation, and use of the Book of Revelation in the Middle Ages.
Bernard Meehan, former Head of Research Collections and Keeper of Manuscripts at the Library of Trinity College Dublin will recount the curious story of how the manuscript arrived at the College through an unusual deal between the Board and a former Provost. Finally, Laura Cleaver, Ussher Lecturer in Medieval Art in Trinity, will address early-twentieth century facsimiles of the text and their impact.
So, if you’re seeking a friend for the end of the world or simply interested in one of the Library’s medieval treasures, please join us for insightful discussion and some free coffee.
Leanne Harrington
The Library is home to a unique collection of around 450 medieval Latin manuscripts, spanning a period of 800 years. Until now, the catalogue has existed solely in hard copy but it has been taken from the shelves of the reading room and made globally accessible online through our Manuscripts and Archives online catalogue, available. You can search specific manuscripts by title, reference number or any keyword relevant to your area of interest – or simply search for the phrase ‘medieval manuscripts’ to have a browse.
The most effective way to illustrate the scope of this project is to provide some insight into the array of items that come under the umbrella of Trinity’s Latin manuscript collection. Perhaps the most well-known group consists of seven Early Irish Christian manuscripts dating from Ireland’s golden age of faith and culture. Among the seven are the Book of Armagh (TCD MS 52) and the Book of Kells (TCD MS 58), which are among the most famous manuscripts in Ireland and, in the case of the latter, the world. All seven of these manuscripts have now been conserved, fully imaged and are available freely online through the Library’s Digital Collections.
The medieval collection includes luxuriously illuminated Books of Hours, confessors’ handbooks, psalters and bibles, to name but a few. The Book of Kells may be the most magnificently decorated Insular manuscript in existence but does it have a plate-spinning dog? No.
TCD MS 632 presents a kind of fifteenth-century classical handbook for medieval readers. Through articles, diagrams and maps, the book accounts for multiple aspects of classical study including mythology, geography and history. These small circular diagrams represent the rivers of the classical world. The larger infographic here relates to the length of time it takes individual planets to orbit the earth (the word terra is marked in the centre). The seven zones of the earth (including the arctic and temperate) are illustrated on folio 108r, identifying which zones are habitable and which are not. There is also a brief note beneath the diagram referring to the nine Muses of Greek mythology.
This charming fellow situated inside the large letter Q of TCD MS 10994, likely depicts Michael of Belluno in Italy; the named scribe of this manuscript. The text serves as a guide for confessors, a list of sins and omissions committed by society, including (but not limited to) boasting, dancing, fighting, superfluous drinking, cursing, gluttons who eat too quickly, men in curled wigs, women who indulge in cosmetics and listening to arousing music.
Other standout examples include the Ricemarch psalter, a Latin text of Welsh origin in an Irish style, and the Dublin Apocalypse (TCD MS 64, pictured below), a fourteenth-century manuscript depicting the Final Judgement in gold and vivid colour that is simultaneously beautiful and grotesque. This particular illustration is the horseman of war, identifiable by his fiery red horse and his big ol’ sword.
If you would like to learn more, here is a quick and shameless plug for our Illuminating the Middle Ages online exhibition which went live in January of this year, available at the following link.
Michael Davitt, who was born in 1846 and died in 1906, was a radical Irish nationalist, social reformer and champion of the Irish diaspora of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Davitt’s papers are held in the Manuscripts’ Department of the Library of Trinity College Dublin. The photographs within the collection are in the process of being catalogued and digitised.
In 1895, Michael Davitt departed Dublin for a tour of Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Hawaii and the United States.
One of the aims of the tour was to re-connect with the Irish communities in Australia after Charles Stewart Parnell’s adulterous relationship with Kitty O’Shea became public knowledge and caused major damage to the Irish Parliamentary Party’s (IPP) reputation internationally.
Irish-Australians had been major financial contributors to Irish famine relief, the IPP and the Land League throughout the nineteenth century. Their support was essential for continuing the campaign towards Irish Home Rule in Westminster. Other reasons for the tour were personal; including Davitt’s need to make money for his family by lecturing in Australia and New Zealand.
During Davitt’s journey to Australia, disaster struck his family in Ireland, when his six-year-old daughter Kathleen died suddenly from the flu. However, Davitt’s wife pressed him to continue his ‘mission’, in a telegram he received from Mary in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Following his wife’s advice, Davitt continued on his voyage to Australia.
Following his tour of Australia and New Zealand, Davitt published Life and Progress in Australasia in 1897. His book focuses on the gold rush in Western Australia and particularly on the town of Coolgardie.
Davitt describes Coolgardie as ‘full of the gold-seeking fever’, with miners from vastly different backgrounds. In his diary for Western Australia MS 9565 he lists these as ‘any number of men with University training, pressmen, politicians, barristers, lawyers…all here on same gold hunting purpose’. The independence of the miners from the Australian authorities is illustrated by his photographs of a fire on Bailey Street in Coolgardie, which he reports in his diary was caused by the burning of an effigy of the Mayor of the town.
Davitt includes an interview with Catholic bishop Matthew Gibney in his book. Gibney discusses the mistreatment of Aborigines, the privatisation of Aboriginal land and hunting grounds in Western Australia. In Life and Progress Davitt declares that ‘the white man’s law justifies him in stealing the black man’s country, his wife, and daughters whenever he wants them; but to take a sheep from this moral professor of the ten commandments is to earn the penalty of a bullet!’
Davitt, as a radical politician and writer from a famine emigrant, working class background, was an important figure to the Irish diaspora in Australia. Davitt’s family were part of the million people who emigrated from Ireland to England, the United States and Australia to escape starvation after the failure of the potato crop during the Irish Great Famine. His importance to the Irish diaspora is evident throughout the Davitt photographic collection as large welcoming committees were organised to from MS 9649/32 below, where Davitt is welcomed at the train station in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia.
The online catalogue has now been updated and can be viewed here.
Dáire Rooney
Trinity College Library is home to the papers of Michael Davitt, 1846-1906. Davitt was a convicted Fenian, Irish nationalist, Irish Parliamentary Party MP, investigative journalist and agrarian campaigner, who is well known for being one of the founders of the Irish National Land League. This extensive collection was presented to TCD library from 1978 to 1980 by Davitt’s son, Cahir Davitt and includes over 6000 letters, 550 photographs, 40 diaries as well as newspaper cuttings, published pamphlets and articles.
The Davitt photographic collection provides a visual record of the latter half of Davitt’s career, when he toured across the prairies and mountains of Northwest Canada, the gold fields of Australia and the battlefields of South Africa during the Second Boer War. The photographs document Davitt’s investigations, as a social campaigner and journalist, into the migration of Scottish crofters to Northwest Canada following the Highland Clearances, the Murray River communal settlements in South Australia, the rush to settle Western Australia fuelled by the gold fields at Coolgardie and the aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom in the Russian Empire.
Davitt was an important figure to a generation of the Irish diaspora who migrated from Ireland to the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand after the devastation of the Great Famine. As a migrant himself, his family left Mayo for Haslingden in Lancashire, his commitment to improving the lives of agricultural tenants and labourers in rural Ireland through his work in the Land League cemented his reputation amongst Irish people living abroad. This is demonstrated in MS 9649/32, which depicts a large crowd of people gathered to welcome Davitt to Maryborough in Victoria.
These photographs are currently being catalogued and digitised. While the Davitt collection is one of the most heavily used historic collections in Trinity Library, this important and extensive collection of photographs within the Davitt papers is less well known due to limited cataloguing. The project aims to update the existing catalogue, the digitisation of the photographs and the publishing of the photographs on Trinity’s digital collections repository to increase accessibility to this significant collection.
The online catalogue has now been updated and can be viewed here.
Dáire Rooney
