Stunning donation to Library

At the launch on Tuesday by Professor John Coolahan of The Round Tower of Roscrea and its Environs by George Cunningham, Mr Cunningham presented an eight volume facsimile of The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland to the College Library.

 

Childrens' Literature Initiative

The English Department’s Centre for Children’s Literature and Culture and the Cregan Library in St. Patrick’s College Drumcondra welcome an exciting new development in children’s books. Pádraic Whyte of Trinity College Dublin and Keith O’Sullivan of the Church of Ireland College of Education have been awarded significant funding from the Irish Research Council to establish a catalogue of children’s books in Dublin over the next two years. The Cregan Library’s important  collection of both literary and pedagogical texts will be included in the overview of children’s books.

Establishing a central catalogue of children’s books held in St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Trinity College, National Library of Ireland, Church of Ireland College of Education, and Pearse Street Library will provide an invaluable tool for the future. Researchers, educationalists, and librarians will be interested to learn that from this catalogue of approximately 40,000 texts (English language at this stage), 1,000 of both literary and educational interest will be selected so that images and digitized versions might be created. In addition, a seminar on the project for May 2015 as well as an edited volume of essays will accompany this major undertaking.

Orla Nic Aodha, Head Librarian of the Cregan Library and Julie Anne Stevens, Director of the Centre for Children’s Literature, have encouraged interest in Cregan Library’s children’s books by compiling
information about its holdings. They believe that the project will offer significant potential for Irish and international researchers in different areas of children’s literature, childhood studies and education, and library studies.

Culture Night 2013!

The Library is delighted to once again take part in the College's Culture Night offerings this coming Friday.

 We will have on display some fascinating items from our Special Collections including:

• Rare books and personal items of figures such as Dan Breen and Michael Davitt
• Beautiful Dolmen Press publications, previously displayed in IMMA's 2010 The Moderns: The Arts in Ireland from 1900 to the 1970's exhibition
• The first picture book ever published as Gaeilge
• Rare Irish language manuscripts from the College Archive

We'll be situated in Belvedere House where there will also be tours of the old building as well as a jazz-inspired perfomance from our artists-in-residence the Fidelio Trio at 6:30pm.  

We'll be there (along with the books) from 5:15pm onwards so pop along and say hello! 

Read with the Obamas!

As you may have known, the US President arrived in Ireland this morning along with the First Lady. On their arrival Taoiseach Enda Kenny presented them with a gift for their children, Malia and Sasha, of a collection of Hawaiian children's stories by Padraic Colum.

What you might not know is that we have a copy of this same collection in two volumes in our Padraic Colum Special Collection in the Library. Why not check out what they'll be reading at story-time in the White House?!

Our Special Collections are not held in down in the main Library but just ask at the Information Desk for Legends of Hawaii or Bright Islands from our Padraic Colum Collection and you can keep up with the Obamas...

Go See Us At The Moderns

Well not us, but our books!

We've let 6 of our most precious children (again, our books) go on holiday to live in the IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) for their wonderful new exhibition The Moderns. The books we have donated are rare first editions from our Dolmen Press Collection:

An Béal Bocht by Myles na gCopaleen;

Rough Field by John Montague;

Zone, Guillaume Apollinaire translated by Samuel Beckett;

Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge;

The Táin by Thomas Kinsella;

Another September by Thomas Kinsella.

Dolmen Press produced some of the most beautiful and most sought-after books in the world. The first edition of Kinsella's Táin features beautiful lithographic brush drawings by Louis le Brocquy which the artist called "shadows thrown by the text", while Riders to the Sea contains colour linocuts by Tate Adams.

The Irish Times have an article on the exhibition here while IMMA themselves describe it as

"the biggest and most ambitious exhibition to be staged by IMMA...a brilliantly diverse collection of visual arts, books, design, architecture, film and music, it traces the development of Modernism in Ireland from the 1900s to the 1970s"

The Moderns opens today, October 20th and runs through to the end of Spring 2011. Our contribution is displayed in Room 17B so go along and show our celebrity books a friendly face!