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Between 1897 and 1913, Andrew Carnegie donated over £170,000 to fund the building of eighty libraries in Ireland. Sixty-two of those libraries have survived to the present day including Rathmines Library, which opened on 24 October 1913.

The following is a transcript of "Our Literary Heritage: A Sense of Place" on Wednesday 23 October 2013 at 6.30pm, in Rathmines Library.

The Picture of Dublin for 1811, being a description of the city, and a correct guide to all the public establishments, curiosities, amusements, exhibitions, and remarkable objects, in and near the city of Dublin. With a map of Dublin in the year 1610; a large map for 1811, and several views. On the same principle as The Picture of London.Dublin, printed for the proprietor, by J. and J. Carrick, Batchelor’s Walk; and sold at 41, Golden Lane; La Grange, Nassau Street; Gilbert and Hodges, and Dugdale, Dame Street; and all the booksellers. (Price six shillings British).This is the first edition of The Picture of Dublin, published in 1811. It does not name an editor or compiler, but the imprint states that it was printed for the proprietor, and sold at 41 Golden Lane. At this time 41 Golden Lane was the address of J. and W. Gregory, printers and booksellers. The dedication to the third edition, published in 1816, is signed by William Gregory, so he is likely to have been the compiler of the first edition.It was based on a similar guide to London, and it was aimed at visitors to the city. It went into several editions in the first half of the 19th century, with many different editors, see Dublin City’s online catalogue for other editions.Like a modern guide book this guide starts with a short history of Dublin, followed by a contemporary description of the city and its inhabitants. It describes the public buildings and other sites worth visiting and it is illustrated with engraved plates showing the Bank of Ireland, College Green, the newly built Custom House, Nelson’s Pillar, and the Grand Canal at Portobello Harbour. Nitty-gritty details for the visitor are also included: lists of hotels, stage coaches, public baths, banks, newspapers, etc. An index makes the guide user friendly for the tourist.One of the earliest maps of the city is that of John Speed, published in 1610, which is reproduced at the front of this volume. The map formed part of The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, published in London in 1610. This gives an idea of the historical shape of the city. The modern map of 1811, folding into the back of the guide, shows the plan of the streets with the main sites marked.This guide allows the historical tourist to wander the streets of Dublin, admiring the many buildings, parks and statues, and experiencing the exhilaration of visiting a distant place: distant in time rather then space. Alternatively download The Picture of Dublin (PDF, 4.48MB) using Adobe Acrobat. Cannot access PDF?View images from The Picture of Dublin for 1811 on flickr

How do folktales and history intertwine? Pick up a school reader from the 1940s, 50s, or 60s in Ireland and you’ll see. Every book from Reading Time, Fact and Fancy, The Educational Readers, The Emerald Readers to Young Ireland Readers presented folktales, and hundreds of these school books were donated to the Dublin City Library and Archives on Pearse Street.

We're delighted to announce that we've digitised the Dublin City Electoral Lists 1908, 1909 and 1910.

The following is a transcript of 'Queen Gormlaith, Brian Boru and The Northmen of Dublin', by Dr Howard Clarke, on Tuesday 8 April 2014 at 1pm, in Dublin City Hall.

Transcript of 'That Field of Glory: Historical and Antiquarian Perspectives on The Battle of Clontarf', by Dr Colm Lennon, on Tuesday 1 April 2014 at 1pm, in Dublin City Hall.

2014 is the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf, which took place on Good Friday 23 April 1014. Commemorating Clontarf: the battle and its legacy was the theme of the City Hall lunchtime lecture series this April. It was standing room only at each of these popular lectures. So in case you missed them we are giving you the chance to listen back to two fascinating lectures.

In the early 1950s (1950-1955) the English poet Philip Larkin lived in Belfast, where he was working as Librarian in Queen’s University. While there he made a number of visits to Dublin.During this time he wrote many of the poems which made up his first major collection The Less Deceived (1955). The proposed collection was rejected by several English publishers, leading Larkin to submit it to the Dublin based Dolmen Press in 1954. But they also declined to publish it. Despite this rejection and a generally negative view of Dublin, expressed on a number of occasions to friends (“I prefer Belfast to Dublin - not architecturally of course, but architecture isn’t everything.” Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, P182), he retained enough memories of the place to evoke it in a later poem ‘Dublinesque’. The poem was written in the summer of 1970 and published in his final full-length collection High Windows (1974). It describes the funeral of a woman, possibly a prostitute - at least many of the mourners are characterised as “a troop of streetwalkers” - and captures the somewhat maudlin atmosphere of the occasion with its “air of great friendliness ... And of great sadness also.”In common with several later Larkin poems the dynamic of the poem moves from an exact description of a mundane, even banal scene, to another dimension where a sort of transcendence is achieved; in this case by the fading sound of a mourner’s voice “singing/Of Kitty, or Katy,/As if the name meant once/All love, all beauty.”

I was delighted to discover that this year's One City, One Book, If Ever You Go, A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song, includes one of my favourite poems, entitled Dublin by Louis MacNeice. This poem may seem like an odd choice, as MacNeice paints a picture of a city in decline, however, Dublin at this time, with 'her seedy elegance', (p. 8) holds a great fascination for me.Anyone with an interest in genealogy, who has used census returns or street directories such as Thoms, will immediately recognise MacNeice’s Dublin. His description of a Dublin tenement with its,…bare bones of a fanlight,over a hungry door. (p. 7)highlights the poverty and depravation of many city dwellers at this time.  MacNeice was not a native of Dublin (he was born in Belfast) but he shows a great fondness for the city, and like Patrick Kavanagh (Collected Poems p.150) he romanticises the Liffey when speaks about,…the brewery tugs and the swanOn the balustrade stream (p. 7)When MacNeice wrote this poem in the 1930s Nelson’s Pillar was a famous landmark, not only with Dubliners but also  with country people who used it as a meeting place. Many a first date started out there under the gaze of Admiral Nelson. At the time of writing, MacNeice could not have foreseen that O’Connell Street with,…Nelson on his pillarwatching his world collapse (p. 7)would change so dramatically.  An explosion in 1966, fifty years after the Easter Rising, (Irish Independent 08/03/1966) destroyed the Pillar and Nelson lost his head, however, visitors to the Reading Room of the Dublin City Library and Archive will find that Admiral Nelson is still keeping a watchful eye on proceedings and who knows maybe romance can still blossom under his gaze.