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Singing his praises

Haugerring, the street near the train station where Synge lived (Photo credit Stadtarchiv Würzburg)
Haugerring, the street near the train station where Synge lived (Photo credit Stadtarchiv Würzburg)

The German-Irish Association of Würzburg has, as a special project, curated an exhibition with the title ‘John Millington Synge: The Wicklow Photographs – Seine Bilder aus Wicklow’ which will be on show for the whole month of September in Würzburg town hall. On display will be twenty photographs of the Wicklow and Dublin area, taken by Synge, and an additional small biographic section showing Synge’s links with Würzburg. The originals of these photographs are in M&ARL.

The exhibition will officially open on 3 September 2014 with the Lord Mayor of Würzburg, Christian Schuchardt, and the Irish Ambassador to Germany, Michael Collins, attending. This project aims to raise awareness in Germany about Synge, who represents a link between the city of Würzburg and its ‘twin’ region of Wicklow where Synge lived; it also marks fifteen years of partnership between Würzburg and Bray.

Royal School of Music  beside the cathedral (Photo credit Stadtarchiv Würzburg)
Royal School of Music beside the cathedral (Photo credit Stadtarchiv Würzburg)

Even in Ireland many may be unaware that it was Synge’s original intention to become a professional musician when he graduated from Trinity College. Synge’s mother was very sceptical about her son’s commitment to music; he only succeeded in continuing his studies in Europe with the support of a relative, Mary Synge, who was a concert pianist and who was able to persuade John’s mother to give up her resistance to her son’s plans. Mary accompanied Synge on his trip to Europe in 1893; the Royal School of Music in Würzburg, under its director Karl Kliebert, had a very good reputation in the late-nineteenth century, which attracted Synge to the city.

(L-R) Irish Ambassador Michael Collins; Lord Mayor of Wurzburg Christian Schuchardt and Matthias Fleckenstein, Chairman of the German-Irish Associatipn of Würzburg (Photo credit Stadt Würzburg)
(L-R) Irish Ambassador Michael Collins; Lord Mayor of Wurzburg Christian Schuchardt and Matthias Fleckenstein, Chairman of the German-Irish Association of Würzburg (Photo credit Stadt Würzburg)

The original house where Synge lived in Würzburg was destroyed in WWII, but in 2014 – 120 years after his stay – the German-Irish Association put up a memorial plaque on the building which now stands on the original site.

During his time at the Royal School of Music, Synge realized that he was not cut out to be a musician. Thus it was in Würzburg that he took the important decision turn away from music as a career. Synge subsequently travelled to Rome and to Paris, where he met William Butler Yeats, who encouraged him to write about the life of the people on the Aran Islands, a subject which was unrepresented in Irish literature.

Matthias Fleckenstein
Chairman of the German-Irish Association in Würzburg

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.

Forthcoming Lectures

Brian Boru Exhibition ImagingThe next month sees an abundance of public lectures around Dublin which use Trinity College Library’s manuscripts collection as source material. The diversity of the lectures reflects the breadth of research interest in our material. From 17th– century Puritanism to 1950s healthcare, via 20th– century composers, Viking invaders and a certain famous harp, there should be something for everyone.

19 March, Dr Polly Ha, (UEA and TLRH Fellow); Recovering the Birth of Independency at Trinity College Library: Puritanism and Liberty in the 17th Century, Trinity College Long Room Hub, 6.15pm.

20 March 2014, Dr Mark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama); 20th -Century Irish Composers, Trinity College Long Room Hub, 6.00pm. Part of the lecture series associated with the In Tune exhibition of music in the Old Library.

3 April, Dr Robbie Roulston, (UCD); The Most Priceless Possession of Protestants in this Country: The Adelaide Hospital and Upholding Protestant Healthcare in Ireland 1950-1972, CHOMI seminar series, Room K114 School of History and Archives UCD, 5.00pm.

11 and 12 April, National Conference on Clontarf 1014-2014 at Trinity College Dublin. Including a talk by Denis Casey on Brian, Armagh and the Irish Church. Dr Casey was the researcher for the soon-to-be launched Brian Boru exhibition in the Old Library.

15 April, Moira Laffan; William Lecky, the Historian.  Also a short talk by Dr Sean Duffy convenor of the National Conference on Clontarf 1014-2014, Foxrock Local History Club, Parish Centre, 8.00pm. Adm €4.

29 April 2014, Janet Harbision, (Irish Harp Centre and Irish Harp College, Limerick); The Brian Boru Harp and its Musical Legacy, Dublin City Hall Lunch Time Lectures, Council Chambers, Dublin City Hall, 1.10-1.50pm. This talk is part of a wider series of lectures entitled Commemorating Clontarf: the battle and its legacy.

Discover more about M&ARL’s collections via our online catalogue.

Estelle Gittins

Persian Treasures

Simon Williams (Foundation Office, TCD), Dr Roja Fazelli (Islamic Studies, TCD), Fionnuala Croke (Director, Chester Beatty Library), Prof  Anne Fitzpatrick (Biblical Studies, TCD), Caoimhe ní Ghormáin (M&ARL, TCD), author and bibliophile Farhad Diba (guest of honour) .
Simon Williams (Foundation Office, TCD), Dr Roja Fazelli (Islamic Studies, TCD), Fionnuala Croke (Director, Chester Beatty Library), Prof Anne Fitzpatrick (Biblical Studies, TCD), Caoimhe ní Ghormáin (M&ARL, TCD), author and bibliophile Farhad Diba (guest of honour) .

As part of M&ARL’s outreach activities we network with specialists in areas of expertise supplementary to our own. On Wednesday we were pleased to welcome author, journalist and bibliophile Farhad Diba and his wife Firouzeh Rastegar and other colleagues and guests came to view a selection of our Persian manuscripts. Firouzeh Rastegar’s son Hashem Arouzi  is on the Board of Trustees of the Iran Heritage Foundation London.

There are over 70 manuscripts in Persian in M&ARL. They include literary and historical works, grammars or dictionaries and epistolary material. The earliest known type of recorded script, cuneiform, comes from Persia, present-day Iran. Some of the Library’s cuneiform tablets are currently on display in the Long Room along with an eighteenth-century copy of the epic Persian poem the Shah Nâmeh.

Material Imaged for the Manuscripts Dept. Online Catalogue May 2010

Guest of honour Firouzeh Arouzi, Prof Hormoz Farhat (Professor Emeritus TCD), Sacha Hamilton (Duchess of Abercorn)
Guest of honour Firouzeh Rastegar, Prof Hormoz Farhat (Professor Emeritus TCD), Sacha Hamilton (Duchess of Abercorn)

Jane Maxwell

A Pali Manuscript from Burma

TCD MS 1642 f1

This manuscript (TCD MS 1642) from Burma, now known as Myanmar, bears the text of the Upasampada Kammavaca, the ordination service for Buddhist monks, and is one of a number of Burmese manuscripts housed in M&ARL .

When one of their sons became a monk, wealthy Burmese families often commissioned a copy of the Upasampada Kammavaca for presentation to the monastery their son was intending to enter. The ordination ceremony is one of the legal acts contained in the Buddhist Monastic Rule or Vinaya. The strict requirement to follow the Rule has meant that the ceremony has remained unchanged for thousands of years, since the time of the Buddha. It is still conducted in Pali, the original language of Buddhism.

Lacquered and gilded wooden cover
Lacquered and gilded wooden cover

This elaborately lacquered and gilded manuscript set comprises two wooden covers and nine leaves. The covers and leaves would have been tied together with string or by thin sticks of bamboo threaded through the hole in the left hand side. Each strip holds six lines of Pali script, written in the square Burmese style, in black magyi zi lacquer made from tamarind seed, between hatched borders. In this instance the leaves have been described as being made from plantain but Kammavaca leaves can also be made from palm leaf, ivory, copper and brass sheets, and sometimes from the old robes of a venerated monk.

Estelle Gittins