Booklets from Trinity College Library - Dublin, Ireland

I couldn't let St. Patrick's Day slip by without a quick post related to Ireland. But I did let it slip by. Try as I might, I just couldn't find the piece I wanted to post about until late in the day. So I actually got this started on the 17th, as it is dated, but the luck of the Irish wasn't with me in getting it finished. And I do have Irish blood, which goes back to County Armagh.

I hadn't looked at this booklet about Ireland's Trinity College Library since returning from a European trip some 16 years ago, which is why I had a hard time finding it. On that trip we got to spend a day in Dublin and toured the library. This booklet was a souvenir purchased at the library's gift shop, one I'm glad I got and kept (well-hidden!).



I remember seeing the Long Room, shown on the cover of the booklet, and being completely awed by the splendor, its architectural history, and the books. Oh, the books!

The Long Room is also depicted in an 18th-century painting by James Malton, which is reproduced in this booklet.


The booklet's rear cover features an enlarged section of the painting.


The highlight of the tour, of course, was the Book of Kells, for which I have another souvenir booklet.


The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript written about the year AD 800 in a monastery scriptorium, but various artistic traits of the manuscript make it difficult to say exactly where it was produced. The Four Gospels of the New Testament comprise the manuscript of 340 calf-skin leaves and it is illuminated with beautiful art work throughout. Even the Latin text displays ornate decoration between many of the lines. Indeed, only two pages in the entire manuscript are without color.

I had a video camera and a 35mm camera, but was not allowed to shoot from either, as I recall. So I'm glad I got the booklets to remember a bit of what I saw. The Trinity College Library booklet was written by librarian Peter Fox. The Book of Kells booklet was written by historian Peter Brown.

There are too many beautiful images, as well as much history, to pick and choose for inclusion here. I fear this post would get too bloated with information and detail, so I've tried to provide appropriate links that will furnish more information as a reader's interest may desire.

Later that day, after touring the library, we followed the sound of Irish music coming from a live band in a music shop near downtown and enjoyed an unplanned concert. And we worked up a powerful thirst that was quenched by a pint of Guinness (or two) in a nearby pub. History, rare manuscripts and books, Celtic music, and an Irish pub--all in Dublin. That's what I was remembering on St. Patrick's Day yesterday. So Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day!


Wikipedia images

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to open a book

Image
Cataloging books the other day, I came across an 1890s multivolume set called Messages and Papers of the Presidents . Inside one of the volumes was a slip of printed paper with a bookbinder's message: How to Open a Book . The set was published by the Government Printing Office, so they are the likely source of this piece of paper, which reprints a passage from a publication titled, Modern Bookbinding . No other bibliographical detail is included for that title, but I have found a magazine from that era, Modern Bookbinding and Their Designers . No clue, though, as to the author of this particular piece. You might wonder (I did) why there would be a need for instructions to open a book. And if you put those instructions inside the book, doesn't that defeat the purpose somewhat? Opening a book is not as easy as you might think. At least if you read these instructions and try to follow them. Here's the gist of it in the opening run-on sentence: Hold the book with its back on a ...
Read more

A Bookaholic and Bibliophile in Ukraine

Image
A favorite piece in my Bibliophemera collection is an unused postcard illustrated by Ukrainian artists Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv. It features two interesting, whimsical creatures embracing each other while maintaining engagement with their books. Cat-like and bird-like, one in high heels and one barefoot, one with a long tail and prominent ears and one with tail feathers and no visible ears, both with beaks, and both with books. They can’t put their books down even in this intimate moment. Appropriately, they are labeled Bookaholic and Bibliophile. Might they even be an imaginative rendering of the artists themselves? Romana and Andriy were both born in Lviv, Ukraine in 1984 and continue to live and work there. The illustration on the postcard is a fitting depiction of their artistic lives where books and their illustrations comprise their passion for illustration, book design, and writing. Together, they started Art Studio Agrafka in Lviv where they have produced award-win...
Read more

F.F. Hansell & Bro., New Orleans 1900

Image
But for the winds of fate that first weekend in September of 1900, the building pictured above (and below), may have crumbled and the publishing & bookselling firm of F.F. Hansell in New Orleans would not have had produced the billhead above. What if the Great Storm of 1900 that leveled Galveston on September 8, 1900--America's worst natural disaster--had caught steering currents that took it north well before a Texas landfall? Hansell's billhead, dated September 28, 1900, owes its existence to the elements of nature, whatever they were at the time: High pressure over New Orleans pushing the storm west? A weak front approaching the Texas coast, pulling the storm toward it? Whatever, this storm could just as easily have veered north with a change in conditions and destroyed New Orleans. A lot of these storms that enter the Gulf of Mexico seem to make that right turn before striking the Texas coast. We (Houston-Galveston area) got lucky last summer with Gustav. Not so lucky w...
Read more