Details of Events

• 2013
• 2014
• 2015
• 2016

2013

What Price the Children: the Work of Dorothy Price among the Dublin Poor

June 2013

As the city of Dublin commemorated the events of August 1913, the industrial dispute which led to the Lockout, the Library took the opportunity to focus on one of the principal underlying causes of the unrest: the degrading levels of poverty experienced by the poorest citizens of Dublin. It was children who bore the brunt of this poverty, and who continued to live, and die, in the most abject circumstances long after the dust settled in 1913.

Dorothy Stopford Price (1890-1954) was a graduate of Trinity's medical school; she devoted her entire professional life to the well-being of the poorest children of Dublin. An online exhibition, based on the Price manuscript collection in the Library was curated to mark the anniversary of the 1913 Lockout.

2014

The Curragh Mutiny in Context

20 March 2014

In March 2014 the Centre for Contemporary Irish History, in conjunction with the Defence Forces, hosted a conference at Ceannt Barracks, the Curragh, on 'The Curragh Mutiny in Context'. This marked the centenary of the gravest crisis in civil/military relations in the United Kingdom for two centuries, a centenary which passed without comment or commemoration in Britain.

March 2014 was the also the 90th anniversary of another crisis in civil/military relations, the Irish Free State army mutiny or 'crisis' of 1924.

Trinity College and the GOC Curragh Training Centre were particularly honoured by the presence of Liam Cosgrave SC and Professor Risteárd Mulcahy, whose fathers played important roles in the peaceful resolution of that episode.

Leading British and Irish historians Tom Bartlett, Ian Beckett, Tim Bowman, Ronan Fanning, Keith Jeffery and Eunan O'Halpin were joined in their exploration of the crisis and its wider ramifications by legal authorities Roger Sweetman SC, Dr Eoin O'Dell BL and Barry Bowman. Former Chief Justice of Ireland Mr Justice Ronan Keane, Sir Richard Aikens of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, and Mr Justice Donal O'Donnell of the Supreme Court of Ireland offered their views on the various arguments presented by the speakers.  The Honourable George Fergusson, Governor of Bermuda, whose grandfather Sir Charles Fergusson commanded the 5th Division stationed at the Curragh in 1914, also gave his reflections. After proceedings closed, the contributors raised a toast in the ante-room of Plunkett Barracks (formerly Ponsonby Officers Mess) where the fateful meeting of officers took place on 21 March 1914.

Symposium – The First World War in European Children’s Literature 1970-2014

27 June 2014

Building on recent research into literary constructions of childhood in the years leading up to and during the Great War, this event focused on the processes at play in more recent literary production, investigating and comparing representations of the War in materials produced across Europe since the beginning of the so-called 'post-memory' period in the 1970s right up until the present day. The symposium was held in English but welcomed international and comparative perspectives; a particular emphasis being placed on the translation and transnational reception of children's war literature. A writers' and practitioners' panel also reflected on the process of mediating the War to children through literature and theatre.

World War I Roadshow

12 July 2014

Trinity College Dublin, in conjunction with RTE Radio 1 and the National Library of Ireland, hosted Family History Collections Day of World War I memorabilia on Saturday, 12 July 2014. The purpose was to enable people to bring First World War documents and other memorabilia into College where they were appraised and digitised by National Library of Ireland staff, assisted by Trinity graduate students. The digitised images will be uploaded to an online archive, which is being developed by Europeana, Europe's digital library, in collaboration with Oxford University and with national partners across Europe, such as the National Library of Ireland. It will result in the first ever online European archive of private materials from WWI.

This day-long event also featured a series of pop up talks and lectures on the Great War and Trinity College Dublin's own unique history during this period.

Contributors included members of the History and English departments, the Library, recent graduates of TCD History postgraduate programmes, and some guest speakers.

There was a range of other activities including history tours of the campus related to the Great War. The day concluded with the final bugle call of the 'Last Post'.

These activities were free and all were welcome to what was intended to be a thought-provoking and enjoyable day to capture the atmosphere of Trinity and of Ireland in 1914 as the British Empire stumbled into an unexpected and cataclysmic war which tore the world apart.

Culture Night: Voices from the Great War

19 September 2014

On Culture Night the Trinity Long Room Hub hosted an event to reflect the great diversity of experiences that came out of the Great War. There were songs, poems, and readings in many languages, and a guest appearance by prizewinning novelist Jennifer Johnston.

2015

Changed Utterly - Ireland and the Easter Rising

24 April 2015 – 12 April 2016

The Library has launched a new blog which examines the Easter Rising and its impact on Ireland as revealed through the lens of the research collections in the Library.

The project will draw on the rich and diverse collections of 1916 material held in the Research Collections departments of Trinity College Library which comprise the Manuscripts and Archives Research Library (M&ARL), the Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections (EPB), the Glucksman Map Library and the Music Library. The blogs will feature items including diary extracts, letters, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, photographs, and even pieces of clothing.

Launched in April 2015, the aim is to produce 52 weekly posts which will showcase the breadth of the Library collections related to 1916. It is intended that the project will act as a catalyst for research and engage the public ahead of the centenary anniversary in 2016. When complete the 52 separate posts will constitute an online exhibition.

Blog posts are written by the staff in Research Division of the Library, and occasionally by Trinity College academics and other experts in the period. The blog may be read here and followed on twitter @TCDLib1916.

Public Lecture – Thinking Historically about the Decade of Commemorations

16 June 2015

The Trinity Long Room Hub was delighted to welcome Professor Joe Lee as a visiting research fellow. He is well known as an astute and entertaining commentator on the uses of Irish history and gave a public lecture in June 2015 entitled 'Thinking Historically about the Decade of Commemorations' in the Niall Lecture Theatre of the Trinity Long Room Hub.

Professor Lee is Glucksman Chair of Irish History and Professor of Irish Studies at New York University. His research interests have included nineteenth and twentieth century German, European, Irish, British, and most recently Irish-American history and politics, as well as historiography. His books, The Modernization of Irish Society, 1848-1918 (Dublin, 1973, 2008) and the prize-winning Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society (Dublin, 1989), now in its eleventh reprint, continue to generate lively debate.

Symposium - The North Began? Northern Separatists and the Irish Revolution, 1900-1925

20 June 2015

Eunan O’Halpin, Bank of Ireland Professor of Contemporary Irish History in Trinity College Dublin, in conjunction with Dr Marnie Hay of St Patrick's, Drumcondra, a specialist in Irish nationalism, organised a conference held on Saturday 20 June 2015.

This public symposium examined the paradox that many of those who revived Irish republican nationalism in the early 20th century were from Ulster, yet some were excluded from the 1916 pantheon. It also discussed northern nationalist activists who migrated south, exploring the formation of their nationalist identity, and the consequences of their migration for them, for the new Irish Free State, and for nationalist communities in the new Northern Ireland.

The conference, which took place in Trinity College, was aimed at a general audience, and particularly at people whose families moved south in the first decades of the 20th century as a result of involvement with cultural or advanced nationalism.

While the programme comprised a series of short academic papers organised as round tables, the thrust of the conference was to make the audience active participants in discussion throughout the day.

The Great War Revisited - New Online Exhibition

30 June 2015

In collaboration with Google Cultural Institute, an online exhibition of more than 60 exhibits from the Library of Trinity College Dublin’s collection relating to the Great War has been launched. Letters, diaries, photographs, videos, posters, pamphlets and artworks from 1914 - 2014 can now be accessed by anyone wherever they are in world, right from their computer, tablet or phone.
Highlights include:

• Trinity’s celebrated collection of Irish WWI recruiting posters (one of the largest collection in existence)
• Previously unpublished photographs of the Allied campaign in Iraq and Turkey
• Letters and diaries from Irish soldiers serving in France, Iraq and Palestine (previously unpublished)
• A multitude of political pamphlets, songs and ballads and artworks

Helen Shenton, Librarian and College Archivist, said: “The Library of Trinity College Dublin is delighted to be partnering with Google Cultural Institute on the Great War Revisited online exhibition. Showcasing the richness of First World War material held in the Library, the online exhibition forms part of the Library's commitment to opening up its historic collections for global online access.”

Hall of Honour Memorial Stone

26 September 2015

In 1928 the Hall of Honour, which acts as the entrance to the 1937 Reading Room, was officially inaugurated. It was built to house the Roll of Honour, the names of Trinity staff, students and alumni who lost their lives in the First World War. On 26 September this year a specially-commissioned memorial stone was be unveiled on the plinth in front of the building to commemorate those whose names are inscribed within. The unveiling of the Hall of Honour Memorial Stone was followed by a reception in the Dining Hall. All were welcome to attend.

The Library began planning a new reading room before the War. In 1918 it was decided to build the reading room as a war memorial but due to financial difficulties it was decided to build portico first to serve as an immediate memorial to those who had died. The whole building was designed by architect Sir Thomas Manley Deane (1851-1932); it was one of the few architectural works he undertook after the death, at Gallipoli in 1915, of his son Thomas. The building work was overseen by John Good and the carving of the names was the work of a Mr Harrison. The Reading Room itself was finished in 1937.

It had always intended to have some additional sculptural element on the central plinth in front of the Hall but this was never completed. The College Archives, which are kept in the Library, contain the drawings for the Hall, and the correspondence with the architect in which he discusses the addition of a sculptural element.

The Hall of Honour was officially opened by the Vice-Chancellor Lord Glenavy in the presence of Provost E.J. Gwynn and invited guests. A two-minute silent black and white film of the event, by British Pathé, may be seen on YouTube.

Each year, in November, a service is held in the College Chapel followed by a procession to the Hall of Honour where the laying of wreaths honours the memory of the lives lost.

In 2014 Provost Patrick Prendergast decided that one of the key Decade of Commemorations events would be the commissioning, installation and unveiling of a memorial stone, to be placed at the front of the Hall of Honour, drawing attention to nature of the building behind it. Sculptor Stephen Burke accepted the commission and, in consultation with the Hall of Honour Memorial Stone committee, undertook to produce a Portland stone with the following text:

Tionscaíodh an Halla Onóra sa bhliain 1928 in onóir na mball foirne, na mac léinn agus na gcéimithe de chuid Choláiste a fuair bás sa Chéad Chogadh Domhanda. Cuireadh críoch leis in 1937 le tógáil seomra léitheoireachta nua don leabharlann.

The Hall of Honour was inaugurated in 1928 in honour of the staff, students and alumni of the College who died in the First World War. It was completed in 1937 by the addition of a new reading room for the Library.

At the ceremony the Provost was joined by the Pro Chancellor Professor Dermot McAleese and Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of Law and Senator, in placing a wreath of laurels at the Memorial Stone. Professor Bacik was then invited to give the address. The President of the Graduate Students’ Union and the President of the Students’ Union read out six biographical profiles of six individuals from the Roll of Honour, representative of the 471 names.

Historian Professor John Horne was asked to provide the historical context of the event which was made available to inform the press coverage of the event.

A film was commissioned by the Memorial Stone Committee.

The Hall of Honour Memorial Stone committee comprised John Coman (Chairman), John Dillon, Sally-Anne Fisher, John Horne, Tomás Irish, Monica Janson, Caoimhe Ní Lochlainn, Eddie McParland, and Jane Maxwell.

Address of Professor Ivana Bacik on the occasion of the unveiling of the Hall of Honour Memorial Stone

I would like to thank the Provost and College Secretary for the kind invitation to deliver an address here today on this historic occasion and in this historic setting.

As a former student, a former Students Union president, a graduate and current staff member of this University, as well as a member of Seanad Ēireann, I am delighted and honoured to participate in this highly appropriate and timely initiative. It is a privilege to be here for the official unveiling of the Memorial Stone to honour the students, staff and alumni of Trinity College Dublin who lost their lives in World War I.

It is very fitting that we would incorporate this Memorial Stone into the 1928 Hall of Honour – the Hall which I used to pass by so frequently with my fellow students on our way into the 1937 Reading Room to consult dusty law texts way back in the 1980s.

Listening to the pen profiles of some of the many students, staff and alumni of Trinity killed in the war, as they were read so eloquently just now by the Presidents of the Students’ Union and Graduate Students’ Union, I am particularly moved to hear the personal and human stories behind the names.

It is particularly poignant for me to hear the name Ernest Julian and to listen to his story – he was an academic lawyer and like me held the Reid Professorship of Law, before dying at Gallipoli as you have heard.
Today, as we bear witness to the lives and tragic deaths of Ernest Julian and the other men whose profiles we have heard, we remember not only them; but also the many thousands of other Irish men and women who fought and lost their lives during the First World War. It is also fitting that we would remember too those whose lives were lost during the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War.

I believe that there is immense strength in listening to individual stories like the pen profiles we have heard, as an appropriate way of commemorating these events. It is hugely important that this period, the period of commemorations, this Decade of Centenary Commemorations, upon which we are embarked as a nation, be marked in a way that is inclusive, respectful and appropriate. It is also important, of course, that we do not celebrate wars that led to hideous human suffering and waste of human lives, but that we mark them in an appropriate manner.

There have been many reports in the newspapers and many academic and historical accounts recently of families with terribly poignant stories of loss in the First World War - for example, the loss of multiple sons and brothers in individual families – like the Duggan brothers whose stories we just heard.

All of us have our individual stories, and many families, including mine, were split between those who fought for the British Army in the First World War and those who stayed in Ireland and fought for independence.
So I think we are all aware of the sensitivities and contradictions surrounding this commemoration period. Indeed, we should be aware here in Trinity of the irony that the 1937 Reading Room attached to the Hall of Honour was opened by a veteran of the 1916 Rising who had himself fought against British soldiers, namely Eamon de Valera.

The five intersecting themes that have been outlined by the Minister for Arts in launching the official plans for the Decade of Commemorations try to take account of these sensitivities and contradictions. They are: Remember, Reconcile, Imagine, Present and Celebrate.

These themes try to ensure that we are commemorating in an inclusive manner and that we are bringing together past, present and future in the events in the decade of commemoration. There is a need to embrace differences and different histories to find a new way of sharing and respecting differences as we move into this 21st century.

This Hall of Honour Memorial Stone can be seen as just one part of our commemoration process. It is indeed a centrepiece event to explore the complexities of Ireland’s involvement in the Great War in line with the agenda for the official Decade of Centenary commemorations – but it is particularly significant as it is a permanent monument to the lives so tragically lost so many years ago.

I think it is very important that permanent monuments like these are planned, to outlast the events that will be taking place over the next year or so – and that much permanent work will be done as part of the commemorations project, including work of refurbishment and regeneration. Specific projects are planned including work on the tenements of Henrietta Street, the Kevin Barry Room in the National Concert Hall and Padraig Pearse's Cottage.

These are important spaces to be renovated and refurbished – as is Kilmainham Gaol, a very important place to visit. I always tell my Criminology students to go there because it instructs them about Ireland's past, not just the political past but also the way in which we treated people who were imprisoned on criminal charges historically. It is a remarkable place. I challenge anyone to feel unmoved when you go into one of the cells there and hear the door clanging shut behind you.

In considering the theme of commemorations during this decade of centenaries, I wish to make three final points about how we remember.

First, I think we need to ensure that our commemorations of wars and military events, particularly next year’s events to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising, are inclusive of many strands – that they are not over-militaristic. I was very struck when I watched the parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the Rising in 2006, which was the last time there was a full military parade. It was quite disturbing to watch - we were commemorating the Rising in a way that seemed almost to celebrate weaponry, artillery and military endeavour to the exclusion of the human stories. It made me very uncomfortable at the time.

I think we have learnt over the last decade to be more inclusive. The great work done by another former TCDSU president, Joe Duffy, in highlighting the deaths of the 40 children aged 2-16 who were killed during the Rising is one example.

Another example was the impressive ‘Road to the Rising’ festival on O’Connell street held over the Easter weekend this year, organised by RTE and Dublin City Council, which covered the social, cultural and political events of 1915 and which attracted massive numbers of people onto the main street of our capital city to learn about the lives of ordinary Dubliners 100 years ago – what they wore, what they ate, how they played. There were barely any guns in evidence, yet a powerful sense of how history was made.

So I think it’s very important that in marking the 100th anniversary of the Rising next year, we would include in the official events commemorations of for example, the role of women and the role of marginalised communities. We should not commemorate the republican leaders without remembering that a hugely important social uprising was taking place as well with the rise of the workers’ movement, the movement for organised labour which was so important at the time- and we should make sure to commemorate the suffragette movement and those remarkable women, like Louie Bennett and Dr Kathleen Lynn, whose stories have only recently been recovered and re-told.

Secondly, I believe that we must be careful about the use of religious services in commemorative events. At the inauguration of President Michael D. Higgins in 2011, for the first time at any presidential inauguration there was a humanist celebrant on the stage for the ceremony, alongside leaders from a number of religions. Let us ensure that humanists, atheists and people of minority religions feel included when we use religion as part of commemorative events.

The third point is about women's involvement. I and other colleagues in the Seanad have called upon local authorities to commemorate the women involved in Cumann na mBan and the events around 1916, and to use women's names when naming public places - many overlooked for decades. The Rosie Hackett Bridge was named by Dublin City Council as part of a campaign initiated by trade unions and women’s groups. It marked a real shift in approach and I hope we see more of it.

In conclusion, I think that the organisers of any commemoration event during this period must ensure that it is not too top-down, that it engages people from all over the island of Ireland, of all ages and classes. It has been said that we Irish have a particular vice – of replacing history with commemoration, of replacing complexities of multiple historical experiences with empty and artificial ceremonies of commemoration. I think we must be aware of this danger. Rather than simply referring to names and numbers when marking the anniversaries of wars, for example, we must be sure to use contemporaneous accounts to try to get as close as possible to the living stream of events – to tell the stories of those who died in war, to mark their humanity as well as their heroism.

I believe that in using pen portraits of those Trinity students, graduates and staff whose lives were cut so tragically short by the Great War, we are ensuring that history and commemoration are intertwined; that in our ceremony today we are remembering the dead in a respectful and inclusive way, marking not just their heroism but also their humanity.
Ivana Bacik Reid Professor of Law

Historian John Horne considers the re-dedication of the Hall of Honour

On Saturday 26 September 2015, the Hall of Honour, which records the names of the 471 staff, students and alumni of Trinity College Dublin who died in the First World War, will be re-dedicated. This will entail unveiling an engraved stone, installed on the plinth in front of the Hall of Honour, to explain the origin and purpose of the structure. This was originally opened in 1928 and includes an octagonal library, added later, which was inaugurated in 1937.

But why should such a ceremony be necessary? The simple answer is that it represents an act of recovery by Trinity of a critical moment in its own history. Few institutions in Ireland were more deeply engaged in the First World War but that fact was largely forgotten over time. Conceived in effect as the College’s War Memorial, the Hall of Honour and library became known collectively as the ‘1937 Reading Room,’ an act of amnesia that erased the memory of the Great War from the College community. Generations of students and staff have walked past the building in Front Square without knowing what it signifies or why it is adorned with the Greek letters NIKH (‘Victory’).

The deeper answer lies in the transformation of Trinity’s place in Ireland and the wider world across the decade of the Great War and Irish Revolution. Trinity College before 1914 was a more complex place than is suggested by the stereotype of a bastion of southern Unionism. Earlier generations (Tone, Emmet, Thomas Davis) contributed to different strands of Irish nationalism, a tradition that continued with Trinity’s role in the Irish language revival (Douglas Hyde) and student receptivity to the cause of Home Rule as well as Unionism. While mainly Protestant, round 20 per cent of students were Catholic in the later 19th century, though with the rise of UCD, this declined to some 10 per cent before 1914. Trinity also admitted women students from 1904. 

Yet if Trinity was by no means unresponsive to the cultural and political challenges in Ireland before the Great War, it remained self-confident, secure in its traditions and its place in the United Kingdom and the wider academic community. The outbreak of war in 1914 was the ultimate test of that world and Trinity’s place in it.

This explains why some 3,000 of the Trinity community joined the armed forces, a response that was exceptional even in terms of the significant Irish enrolment in the conflict. It placed TCD’s relative contribution only slightly behind that of Oxford and Cambridge. Nearly a third were medics but they came from all disciplines, and included figures such as Ernest Julian. He was Reid Professor of Law (a chair held by two past presidents of Ireland, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese) and died at Gallipoli. Trinity men fought on every front, from France to Macedonia and Palestine to Mesopotamia. University staff also contributed to the intellectual debates that raged over the war and to the new links forged by the conflict between science and the state. John Joly, the leading scientist in Trinity and Ireland, took part in a variety of war-related research projects.

The war dealt Trinity a double blow. Engagement on such a scale in a conflict whose length and human cost no one had anticipated meant that the College community was deeply afflicted by the death of so many members. In Britain and Ireland, it is rare to find a monument dedicated (like the Hall of Honour) to those who died rather than those who served. This tells it’s own story; the shadow of the war dead hung over Trinity for a generation.

The war also led to the Irish Revolution, which dissolved Trinity’s world. The College was a base for the repression of the Rising in 1916, which contributed to Trinity’s later sensitivity about the war in general. Then in a Free State founded not on the Great War but the Easter Rising, Trinity withdrew into itself and the war became more a matter of internal memory than of connection with the state and society outside. As Tomás Irish has argued in a new history, Trinity in War and Revolution 1912-1923, published by the Royal Irish Academy, an ‘old’ Trinity died in 1914 and a ‘new’ Trinity, the self-confident, international university of our own day, only emerged from the 1950s on. The price of that re-emergence was the onset of full amnesia about the most crucial decade in the College’s modern history. The re-dedication of the Hall of Honour is above all an act of reparation for the lost memory of that decade and of the Trinity men who died on the battlefields of the Great War.

John Horne, Professor of Modern European History and Director of the Trinity Centre for War Studies.

Book Launch - Of War and War’s Alarms: Reflections on Modern Irish Writing

13 October 2015

Poet Gerald Dawe, Professor of English and Fellow of Trinity, will be launching his most recent book in October. Of War and War's Alarms (Cork University Press, 2015) is a unique study of war and revolution and their impact on the writing lives of Irish poets and novelists from WWI and the Easter Rising through the War of Independence to the Spanish Civil War, WWII and the Northern "Troubles." These timely reflections on literature in wartime include such figures as W B Yeats, Thomas MacGreevy, Seamus Heaney along with Francis Ledwidge, Charles Donnelly and Padraic Fiacc, Benedict Kiely, William Trevor, John Hewitt and Christabel Bielenberg. Of War and War’s Alarms builds upon the author’s achievement in his original ground-breaking anthology of Irish war poems Earth Voices Whispering

Book launch: Royal Irish Academy Tuesday 13 October - 18:00
Belfast International Ulster Bank Arts Festival Friday 16 October - 19:00
Tuesday Talks at DLR LexIcon Gerald Dawe in conversation with Liz McManus Tuesday 10 November - 18:30

Lecture by Professor Roy Foster - An Inheritance from our Forefathers? Historians and the Memory of the Irish Revolution

20 October 2015

Professor Roy Foster will deliver the 2015 Edmund Burke lecture on the agendas, elisions and implications of commemorating events in Irish history that are at once inspirational and divisive. His lecture will consider the ‘history wars’ that broke out in Irish academic and public life in the 1970s, the psychological uses of memory in Irish history, and the challenges presented by the current  centennial observations of the Irish revolutionary decade of 1912-22.

Professor Roy Foster is the Carroll Chair of Irish History, University of Oxford, and Visiting Parnell Fellow, Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is the author of the widely-acclaimed Vivid Faces: the Irish revolutionary generation 1890-1923 (Alan Lane: 2014)

This lecture, which is which is supported by a generous endowment in honour of Padraic Fallon by his family, will take place in the Edmund Burke theatre. It is organised under the auspices of the Trinity Long Room Hub and registration is required. 

Book Launch - Trinity College and the Irish Revolution, 1912-23

November 2015

The Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast, commissioned a new history of Trinity for the period 1912-1923, which will examine the changes taking place at this time and the consequences of these for the University. Dr Tomás Irish, formerly a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for War Studies, has undertaken the work and the book, which is being published by the R.I.A., will appear in autumn 2015.

Lightshow – The lamps are going out all over Europe; we will not see them lit again in our lifetime

16-20 November 2015 18:00 – 22:00

In April 2015 the Library curated an installation inspired by the words ‘The lamps have gone out all over Europe. We will not see them lit again in our lifetime’. This resonant phrase, dating from the eve of the Great War, which was understood from the beginning as a threat to enlightened civilization. The Library arranged to project, onto the East face of the 1937 Reading Room, the names and portraits of the Trinity engineers and medics who fell during WWI. The projection was seen for two hours a night during Trinity Week and was so well received that it is to be repeated in November.

Lightning talks - The Decade of Commemoration: showcasing resources and new pathways for research

18 November 2015 13:00-14:00, Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub

A series of talks to illustrate how the Library’s research collections are being explored and disseminated.

The lunchtime event will introduce a series of innovative Library initiatives responding to the Decade of Commemoration and showcasing the Library’s unique and distinct collections. These initiatives include the Great War Revisited online exhibition in partnership with Google Cultural Institute; the Changed Utterly 1916 blog project; and the forthcoming Fit as fiddles and as hard as nails war-diaries resource.  The projects raise awareness of the unrealised research potential of the Library collections and seek to activate new areas of scholarship. This event will be attractive to both teachers and students interested in exploring the research potential of the Library’s collections.

Please note places are limited.

School of Histories & Humanities Extramural Course: Revolutionaries

9 November 2015 – 4 March 2016

The School of History & Humanities will run a weekly series of lectures focusing on the reputations of famous historical figures. The class will consider not only the kinds of political revolutionaries who might immediately come to mind, but those who have transformed their country or their world through their ideas or their actions in other spheres of life. These characters will be drawn from classical, medieval, early modern and modern times, some well-known and some not so well known. There will be an opportunity for discussion after each lecture and a small list of recommended reading will be circulated for each session.

Oifig na Gaeilge Bilingual Public Seminar

23 November 2015

Oifig na Gaeilge, in partnership with Conradh na Gaeilge, will run a bilingual public seminar in Trinity’s Public Theatre. This will fit into a special programme of seminars being run by the Conradh throughout the coming year, but the Trinity event will particularly explore southern minority and Protestant, as well as Northern unionist perspectives on 1916 and explore also the experience of minority language promotion in a UK context (Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Irish in Northern Ireland). Further information available at https://www.tcd.ie/gaeloifig/

Public lecture by Joe Duffy - Children of the Rising: the untold story of the young lives lost during Easter 1916

26 November 2015

Broadcaster and journalist Joe Duffy will give a free public lecture based on his recent book Children of the Rising: the untold story of the young lives lost during Easter 1916. Children of the Rising is the first ever account of the young lives violently lost during the week of the 1916 Rising: long-forgotten and never commemorated, until now. Boys, girls, rich, poor, Catholic, Protestant - no child was guaranteed immunity from the bullet and bomb that week, in a place where teeming tenement life existed side by side with immense wealth. Drawing on extensive original research, along with interviews with relatives, Joe Duffy creates a compelling picture of these forty lives, along with one of the cut and thrust of city life between the two canals a century ago.

Date: Thursday 26 November 2015
Time: 17:15-18:30
Venue: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, 24 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2

The lecture is offered free of charge however pre-booking is advisable. An ISL Interpreter will be present for this lecture.

The ‘Tell Me About’ public lecture series comprises of seven lectures and is presented as part of the School’s Civic Engagement Strategy.

To book a place contact: Jeni Ryan ryanjen@tcd.ie.

Fit as Fiddles and Hard as Nails: Irish Soldiers’ Voices from the Trenches

November 2015

The Library plans an online publication of the War diaries and letters in the Library’s manuscripts collection. The publication will include photographs, page-by-page transcriptions and contextual essays.

2016

Read all about it; facsimiles of newspapers now available

The Revolution Papers is a commemorative public history initiative which makes available the most important Irish newspapers reprinted exactly as they appeared almost one hundred years ago.
Inside the facsimile pack are international, national and local newspapers which give the reader all points of view about the historic events as they were making the news. The contextual articles are produced by experts on Irish history including Bank of Ireland Professor of Modern Irish History Eunan O’Halpin; The Revolution Papers are available every Tuesday during 2016, at all newsagents in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

School of English Evening Lecture Series: Literature and Revolution

19 January – 22 March 2016

In this lecture series members of the School of English will present a series of talks on the relationship between literature and revolution. Literary texts of different eras and countless genres have portrayed various kinds of revolutions. Writers and their works have also actively participated in revolutions by helping to provoke, sustain, and celebrate, or, by contrast, avert and critique them.

Public lecture series: Europe’s Violent Memories

26 January 2016

The ‘Europe’s Violent Memories’ lecture series has been organised by the Trinity Centre for European Studies and the Trinity Centre for War Studies in association with the Trinity Long Room Hub and supporting Trinity’s Identities in Transformation research theme. This year it will re-examine the legacies of the Easter Rising and seek to locate the founding decade of modern Ireland in the context of Europe and the non-European world over the last hundred years, post-1945 decolonization and Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles’.

Oifig na Gaeilge and the Gaelic League Ard Fheis

27 February 2016

The Gaelic League holds its annual Ard Fheis (annual conference) dinner in the Dining Hall in College (following a two day conference in Dublin Castle). Oifig na Gaeilge is partnering with them in providing a short lecture and a drama presentation at the dinner, with Trinity students from An Cumann Gaelach. Further information available at https://www.tcd.ie/gaeloifig/

Free Online History Course - Irish Lives in War and Revolution

March – April 2016

In response to the remarkable success of our first MOOC, and the public interest at home and abroad, Trinity and FutureLearn will shortly re-open the free online Irish history course 'Irish Lives in War and Revolution 1912-1923'. 

The six-week course is open to all and will run from St. Patrick's Day to Easter 2016, allowing learners to gain a broader understanding of the events being commemorated, and to consider the daily lives which usually receive little attention. In a series of short videos, through discussion forums with fellow learners and by accessing a wealth of original documents online, learners can explore the lives of men, women and children living through the war, revolution and social changes that made modern Ireland.

Pre-registration is open.

Proclamation Day – Reading of the Proclamation

15 March 2016

Trinity will take part in a nation-wide reading of the proclamation

Proclamation Day Symposium

15 March 2016 - 18:00

The Trinity Long Room Hub is organising a symposium on Proclamation Day 2016 which will consider the1916 Proclamation in its national and international context. Historians and literary scholars will consider the historical context of events in 1916, going back three centuries, and the global context, considering independence movements in America, France and China.

Alumni Events

March-April 2016

To mark the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, Trinity alumni and friends based in the London area were invited to a lecture entitled ‘Debating 1916’ on Thursday 31 March 2016. The Irish Ambassador to Britain, HE Dan Mulhall welcomed alumni and friends to the debate which took place in the University of Liverpool London campus  and which was chaired by Provost Patrick Prendergast. The panel of historians included, Dr Kevin Bean (The Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool), Professor Roy Foster (University of Oxford), Dr Anne Dolan (Trinity College Dublin), Professor Joe Lee (NYU), Professor Eunan O’Halpin (Trinity College Dublin) and Professor Heather Jones (LSE) who discussed their own take on the 1916 Rising and its relevance to contemporary Ireland today. Concluding remarks were made by Professor Ciaran Brady (TCD). Photographs of the event are available online.

On 5 April Professor Eunan O'Halpin, spoke on ‘The Dead of the Irish Revolution and the role of the Intelligence Services in Ireland in 1916-1921’ to TCD alumni in New York, members of the Irish-Network NYC and of the Irish American Bar Association of New York. This was hosted by The Consulate General of Ireland. An edited film of Professor O'Halpin's address is available online.

Back to top of page