September 2004 Edition

The exhibition consists of the following components: a commentary on the Office of President of Ireland by the historian Dr Diarmaid Ferriter; an administrative history of the Office of the Secretary to the President; descriptions of the three series of records generated by the latter office; a searchable finding aid database to the records themselves; an online gallery of digitised documents drawn from the collection; a timeline and finally, a glossary of Irish terms used in the exhibition.

Offering a window on the relationship of the first four Presidents with the people of Ireland, the exhibition's highlights include the 1963 Visitors' Book signatures of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier of Monaco and their children, a letter from Maud Gonne Mac Bride in 1939 declining an invitation to a garden party at Áras an Úachtaráin due to the "horrid coercion act" (the Offences Against the State Act) that Douglas Hyde was about to sign and the telegram sent by President Eamon de Valera in 1963 to Jacqueline Kennedy on the death of her husband John F. Kennedy. The "objectionable" behaviour of Patrick Kavanagh at a garden party as a press representative in 1943 was also recorded in a memorandum, noting that he looked "untidy and not altogether clean".

The Office of President of Ireland is accurately reflected through the records of the Secretary to the President and it is hoped that this exhibition will illustrate not only the functions performed by the President, but will also document the position occupied by the office in Irish political life and in our political culture. 

Elizabeth McEvoy
National Archives of Ireland

Exhibitions List

James Joyce and Ulysses at the National Library of Ireland
15th June 2004–Summer 2005
Opening Hours: Monday–Wednesday, 10.00–20.00
Thursday-Friday, 10.00–16.45
Saturday, 10.00–12.45

The National Library marked the opening of a newly refurbished and enlarged exhibition facility in its Kildare Street premises on 15 July with its inaugural exhibition, James Joyce and Ulysses at the National Library of Ireland. The exhibition runs until Summer 2005 and has two main aims—to show Joyce's creative process, and to introduce and explain the significance of his masterpiece Ulysses. It is designed to appeal to a wide range of visitors, from those who have never read Joyce and remain sceptical of his rating as the greatest writer of the twentieth century, to the Joyce aficionado and scholar.

Visitors can make an advance booking using the online booking form to ensure that they are immediately admitted to the exhibition on arrival. Last admittance to the exhibition will be 30 minutes before closing time. Guided tours are also available, at a cost of €3. Tours begin at 11.00, 12.00, 14.00 and 15.00 every day. To book a guided tour for other times, or to make a booking for groups larger than 10 people, please e-mail <kmcsharry@nli.ie> or phone +353 1 6030 346.

During the summer months Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, staged an exhibition, in its treasury in the restored medieval crypt, of manuscripts associated with the pre-Reformation cathedral priory. Entitled "The Christ Church Psalter in Context" the exhibition brought together, for the first time since the Reformation, all but one of the manuscripts which are known to survive from the Augustinian Priory of Holy Trinity.

The centre piece of the exhibition was the splendidly illuminated fourteenth-century Christ Church Psalter, which was loaned by the Bodleian Library, and also from the Bodleian came a fourteenth-century processional. Trinity College, Dublin, lent a fifteenth-century antiphonal and the thirteenth-century martyrology and fifteenth-century book of obits which are bound together in one volume. To these were added the two administrative codices, the Liber Niger and Liber Albus, which survived in the custody of Christ Church. Regrettably the only remaining manuscript which can be linked with the medieval priory, a fourteenth-century processional, now in Marsh's Library, could not be made available for loan.

In addition to the exhibition there was a special concert by the Cathedral Choir of music associated with the exhibits, a series of lunchtime lectures on the manuscripts, and an academic seminar which was held with the Friends of Medieval Dublin. The proceedings of the seminar will be published next year.

Raymond Refaussé
Exhibition curator