blog

City Routes: A Deep Mapping of Dublin’s Central Library

Over the last two years, the artist Silvia Loeffler whose practice concerns itself with mapping interactions was inspired by the creative possibilities of the Central Library, the busiest public library in Dublin city.
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25 March 2021

While the music played

Highly worthy of its place on the 2021 Dublin Literary Award Longlist, this début novel by Canadian author Nathaniel Lande (nominated by the Hungarian Katona József Library of Bács-Kiskun County), is a notable addition to the Holocaust fiction canon.
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5 March 2021

Retail in Dublin City Centre 1790-1990

The Central Library are hosting a new series by Dublin City Council Historian in Residence Dr Mary Muldowney which takes a look at retail streets like Henry Street and how they have changed over the last 100 years or so.
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18 February 2021

Knocking Nelson Off His Pillar: Writers and the Meaning of Statues

Free Online lecture. The 3rd Annual Dublin UNESCO City of Literature Lecture 2021, presented by Professor Chris Morash. Booking required.
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13 January 2021

Down by The Salley Gardens, Thíos cois garraithe na Saillí le WB Yeats

Bhain slua maith taitneamh as seo ó Ghuthanna Binne Síoraí (Everlasting Voices) ar Lá Filíochta na hÉireann, Déardaoin, 26 d’Aibreáin i mBliain na Gaeilge, 2018. Bhí filíocht ó WB Yeats curtha i láthair i mbéarla agus Gaeilge ag Cathal Quinn, Acadamh Lir agus seinnteoir, Enda Reilly. D’aistrigh Gabriel Rosenstock na dánta ó bhéarla go Gaeilge.We celebrated Poetry Day Ireland, 26 April and Bliain na Gaeilge with a great event, "I Hear It in the Deep Heart’s Core" with Guthanna Binne Síoraí at Dublin City Library and Archive.
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30 April 2018

Doing their bit: Irish women and the First World War

Doing their bit: Irish women and the First World War is a new exhibition in Dublin City Library and Archive in Pearse Street. The exhibition centres on the impact that the First World War had on the lives of Irish women and the new opportunities that opened up for them.
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20 March 2018

1916: How will you remember?

"Dublin Remembers 1916" has been an extensive series of lectures, talks by expert historians, exhibitions and conferences in Dublin libraries, City Hall, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and other venues in the city throughout 2016.
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7 November 2016

Launch of Richmond Barracks 1916: We were there - photos

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh, launched the book 'Richmond Barracks 1916: We were there, 77 women of the Easter Rising' to a packed audience at the Chapel, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin 8, on International Women's Day, Tuesday, 8 March 2016.
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10 March 2016

Nelson's Pillar Commemorative Event - Photos

The 50th anniversary of the destruction of Nelson's Pillar occurred on Tuesday, 8th March 2016, and to mark the occasion Dublin City Archives held a commemorative event entailing a talk by historian Donal Fallon, poetry read by Alastair Smeaton, and ballads by Luke Cheevers and Tony Fitzpatrick.View the photo slideshow of the event below. View the photos on flickr.The full programme was as follows:Extract from Evening Correspondent (Dated 16 February 1808). Read by Alastair SmeatonLord Nelson (Tommy Makem). Ballad sung by Tony FitzpatrickThe Pillar: the Life and Afterlife of the Nelson Pillar. Talk given by Donal FallonAdmiral Nelson (Luke Cheevers). Ballad sung by Luke CheeversDublin (Louis MacNeice). Poem read by Alastair SmeatonNelson’s Farewell (Joe Dolan from Galway). Ballad sung by Tony Fitzpatrick
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9 March 2016

Joyce, the Rathmines Connection

Given the day that is in it, it is fitting that staff in Rathmines Library have dressed in costume to mark Bloomsday 2015. This is not by mere chance: James Joyce was born in Rathmines and spent his early years there. Read more below, but first you must admire the costumes on display today....(Click images above to view larger version)Joyce, the Rathmines ConnectionArguably Ireland’s greatest literary genius and a leading proponent of modernism in fiction,  James Joyce was born at 41 Brighton Square and spent his earliest years there and in 23 Castlewood Avenue. But as the fortunes of the family declined, the Joyces moved to cheaper accommodation and Joyce was never again to live in Rathmines, leaving Ireland with Nora Barnacle in 1904. He was to spend the rest of his life in Italy and France, paying his last visit to Ireland in 1912. Despite this, he obsessively recorded the minute details of Dublin life in his great work Ulysses and the hero of the novel is considered to embody both the “Everyman” of the twentieth century and the archetypal Dubliner.Rathmines and Beyond: A Literary HeritageRathmines and its surrounding areas could make a convincing argument for being the most literary quarter of our literary city. Birthplace of James Joyce, born at a time when Rathmines’ image was solid, bourgeois and red-brick, the township changed over time, so that by the early 20th century it had become a positive hotbed of political activists and creative types. As the century progressed, its large houses were divided into separate units - "flatland" came into being, and Rathmines became the first stop for many young people moving from the countryside into Dublin. This trend was discontinued in the early 21st century, but throughout all these changes, the area remained home to a wide range of journalists and novelists, poets and playwrights, writers’ groups and reading clubs, with its fine library very much at the heart of this literary activity.Read more about the many literary figures that lived in and around the Rathmines area.
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16 June 2015