On 17 August, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris announced an investment of €4.3 million in 50 enterprise-focused research awards under the Irish Research Council’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme.
Among the 11 awardees announced from Trinity College Dublin last week was Dr Nora Moroney, Trinity Long Room Hub alumna and a graduate of Trinity’s School of English. Dr Moroney will commence research in collaboration with Marsh’s Library on the book collection of Benjamin Iveagh, one of Ireland’s most “exquisite” book collections, according to the post-doctoral researcher.
“I've always been interested in print and publishing history, and this project allows me to delve into the world of private libraries and book collecting. With its links to the Guinness family and Farmleigh House, I hope that the project will appeal to a wide audience and enhance appreciation of some of the treasures of the collection - from 18th century bindings to first editions of Joyce and Swift”, commented Dr Moroney on the award.
The Benjamin Iveagh Library, based at Dublin’s Farmleigh House, represents one of the most significant private book collections of twentieth-century Ireland.
The Benjamin Iveagh Library, based at Dublin’s Farmleigh House, represents one of the most significant private book collections of twentieth-century Ireland. Benjamin Guinness, Earl of Iveagh (1937-92) amassed an important library over his lifetime which was later bequeathed to Marsh's Library, Dublin. This project represents a unique partnership between Marsh's and Trinity College Dublin, aiming to develop the national and international profile of a collection held in one of Ireland's most prestigious houses.
The project will be mentored by Professor Eve Patten, School of English and Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, who also supervised Dr Moroney’s doctoral research on Irish writers and the late-Victorian periodical press.
Dr Moroney highlighted the exciting opportunity to work with Marsh’s Library as part of the project, alluding to its “expertise in rare books and public outreach” which will allow her to gain critical skills “beyond the academic sphere.”
Bringing together print networks, library collections management and big house history, this study will provide the most comprehensive analysis of the Iveagh Library – indeed any Irish private collection – to date.
The Enterprise Partnership Scheme has been operating for 15 years in the Irish research and innovation landscape and connects enterprise, early career researchers and higher education institutions. For more information, click here.
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Digging into the Archives: Meltem Gürle
18 August 2020 - As the Trinity Long Room Hub celebrates the 10th year since its opening on Fellows’ Square, we have asked some long-time friends, colleagues and supporters of the Hub to dig into our archives of over 400 recorded discussions and lectures and pick their top three. This month, Dr Meltem Gürle, former Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub, describes her top moments.
Utopia DystopiaLiterary Responses to the 1917 Russian Revolution
An evening of readings to mark the centenary of the 1917 revolutions in Russia, hosted by the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies.
...Professor Smyth made it clear to the audience that they could not remain passive listeners during this lively reading session...
This unforgettable event was organised by Sarah Smyth, linguist and senior lecturer at the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, and bore traces of her vast knowledge of Russian literature. With her contagious enthusiasm, Professor Smyth made it clear to the audience that they could not remain passive listeners during this lively reading session, which kicked off the Utopia Dystopia series dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. The readings covered poetry, memoirs, and even extracts from novels written during or in the aftermath of the Revolution. Especially memorable is Good!, Mayakovsky’s epic poem of October, which was delivered partially in English, partially in Russian. All the lectures in this series were brilliant, but this event stood out among others in its ability to generate a feeling of collectivity, shared by the presenters and audience. We started by singing Varshavianka (“March, march forward, working people”) and ended with the Internationale (“With the Internationale, humanity will rise up!”), which added to the atmosphere of brotherhood which reigned in the room from the very beginning.
The Utopia Dystopia lecture series in 2017-18 was organised by Trinity College Dublin’s Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies and Department of History in association with the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
TLRHub · Utopia Dystopia: Literary Responses to the 1917 Russian Revolution
Behind the Headlines #MeToo - Then and Now
Professor Lauren Arrington (University of Liverpool), Professor Susan Cahill (Concordia University), and Professor Darryl Jones (Trinity College Dublin).
A change was about to come and we were all feeling it.
In my mind, this event is inseparable from the campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2018, a campaign whose success represented a historic moment for Ireland that I was happy to have witnessed. The referendum was still two months ahead and we did not know what the outcome would be. The room was tense with expectation and full to overflowing. A change was about to come and we were all feeling it. So did all the speakers. To me, the highlight of the evening was Susan Cahill’s passionate talk on the importance of personal testimony in feminist activism. The fact that Cahill’s own personal testimony, her brave and honest firsthand account of abortion, had recently appeared in the Irish Times, added to the excitement in the room. I still remember how she grasped the audience from the very first lines with a quote from Ursula Le Guin’s Bryn Mawr College commencement speech in May 1986: “We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.”
A discussion on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2018 in partnership with the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool University as part of the Trinity Long Room Hub’s ‘Behind the Headlines’ discussion series. Behind the Headlines offers background analyses to current issues by experts drawing on the long-term perspectives of Arts & Humanities research. The Trinity Long Room Hub Behind the Headlines series is supported by the John Pollard Foundation.
TLRHub · #MeToo - Then and Now
‘With a brother’s arms’An Evening with Bernard O’Donoghue
Bernard O'Donoghue, poet and former Visiting Research Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub.
...O’Donoghue brought us face-to-face with existential questions concerning our vulnerability, loss, and mortality.
The Trinity Long Room Hub excels at delivering big events involving several speakers and a large audience. Yet there are also small and friendly gatherings, which are equally memorable. One such experience was the evening with the Irish poet Bernard O’Donoghue. In the intimate setting of the Neill, a small crowd settled in: Dubliners, readers, academics. I remember an elderly woman holding in one hand a shopping bag and in the other Here Nor There, O'Donoghue's third collection of poetry. Unassuming, graceful, and humble, the poet read his “Ter Conatus” (Three Attempts) from the same collection after explaining to the audience that he took the title from Virgil’s Aeneid, where Aeneas tries three times, in vain, to hold the soul of his father in the afterlife, and finds that his living arms pass through him, because it is impossible to embrace a shadow. That evening, with his tender and subtle poetry, O’Donoghue brought us face-to-face with existential questions concerning our vulnerability, loss, and mortality. We were all quiet when it ended, especially the woman with the shopping bag, who left early, without getting an autograph.
An Evening with Bernard O'Donoghue, a special event presented by the School of English to celebrate Bernard O'Donoghue's residency in the Trinity Long Room Hub.
About Dr Meltem Gürle
Dr Meltem Gürle, was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub from 2017 to 2018. Dr. Meltem Gürle is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern and South East Asian Studies of the University of Cologne. She started her position, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, in October 2018, and is working on her book project on the Turkish Bildungsroman.
Click here to browse audio recordings of our past events.