Dublin City Libraries will be closed from Saturday 3 to Monday 5 May 2025 (inclusive). Our online services will continue as usual. We will reopen on Tuesday, 6 May.
When May Finn died after 50 years of widowhood, her family found a hidden trove of more than 90 love letters carefully tied in ribbons. They had been written in 1916 as she and her fiancé approached their wedding day that June.
During Heritage Week we were fortunate to host award winning writer Cecil Allen's entertaining talk about the colourful history of The Queen's Theatre.
Listen to historian Donal Fallon discuss the history of commemorating the 1916 Rising, while looking at events such as the first anniversary in 1917, the often-violent Easter parades of 1930s Dublin and the fiftieth anniversary in 1966.Recorded on Thursday 23 June 2016 at 6.30pm in Dublin City Library and Archive as part of the Dublin City Council 1916/2016 Centenary Programme.
Dublin City Council holds an original 1916 Proclamation which belonged to Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell and was kindly donated by her family. This Proclamation has been conserved and is now on display in The Story of the Capital exhibition at City Hall. To commemorate the family’s generosity, Dublin City Council held a seminar in the Council Chamber at City Hall on Monday 25 April 2016.
'A Poet in Bits' was a poetry reading by Ronan Brown at Pearse Street Library on 19th August 2015.Ronan Brown was born in Manchester and grew up in Dalkey in the 50s and 60s. He worked as a chartered surveyor but has been writing poetry since the 1970s. Browne was a former member of 'Chapter and Verse', the writers' group which met in the Killiney Court Hotel. His work has been published in anthologies.Part of Pearse Street Library's Speaking Words Series.
Poetry reading by Australian poet, Ross Donlon at Pearse Street Library on 13th May 2015.Ross Donlon lives in Castlemaine in Australia. His poems have been widely published in Australia and Ireland. The Blue Dressing Gown was published in 2011 by Profile Poetry. Tightrope Horizon (Five Islands Press) was published in 2003. Shh and Other Love Poems and My Ship were published by Mark Time Books in 2009. Shh has been anthologised in Poems for All Occasions and elsewhere. In 2014 Ross published Awakening: Poems from the collection of the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Light Travelling: a sampler of new and collected poems. His latest book is Sjøvegan (The Sea Road).In 2009 Ross was awarded the Varuna Writers' House Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellowship for Poetry, and in 2010 he was awarded the Wenlock Festival Poetry Prize at the Arvon International Poetry Competition by chief judge, Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.Part of Pearse Street Library's Speaking Words Series.You can listen to Ross reading his poetry here (playing time: 14:09 mins):
(Podcast) "The women were worse than the men: crime in Dublin in 1916", the 19th Annual Sir John T. Gilbert Lecture, was given by Pádraig Yeates at the Dublin City Library and Archive on Thursday, 21 January 2016.
The life of 19th century mathematician and poet, William Rowan Hamilton, was told through a sequence of sonnets by poet Iggy McGovern and friends Paula Murphy and Noel Duffy at Pearse Street Library 26 February 2015.William Rown Hamilton (1805-65) was the foremost mathematician of the mid nineteenth century. Iggy McGovern's 'A mystic dream of 4' is a sonnet sequence based on the life and time of this remarkable Irishman.The event featured as part of the Mind Yourself Programme.You can listen to the event here (playing time: 49:48 mins):
The Orchestra of St Cecilia Collection: 1995 – 2014
Dublin City Library and Archive has recently acquired the Orchestra of St Cecilia Collection, donated by manager/artistic director Lindsay Armstrong after his retirement in 2014. The collection comprises Armstrong’s comprehensive administrative records arranged chronologically with individual folders for each orchestral performance.
