Join us for our very first Twilight Talks which highlight how NLI collections have informed, shaped, or transformed Readers' research.

Join us for a series of four Twilight Talks, each just fifteen minutes! These talks are are intended to showcase the depth of scholarship, creativity and discovery emerging from registered readers' engagement with the library’s collections.

Please find a brief abstract of each presentation below.

Sarah Curran, 1782–1808: much more than a revolutionary’s girlfriend | Dr Angela Byrne

Sarah Curran (1782–1808) is usually remembered as a tragic figure: the secret fiancée of martyred United Irishman Robert Emmet. She was at the heart of an important but long-forgotten circle of literary women centred around three notable Cork families – the Wilmots, Chetwoods and Penroses. The National Library of Ireland holds Curran’s only surviving letters, one of her music books, and a map of Ireland embroidered by her own hand. The items in the NLI collection are evidence of her rich intellectual and cultural life as a creative, cosmopolitan person: a talented harpist, an entertaining letter-writer, a great reader, a poet. Drawing on items from the NLI collection and underused sources from other Irish collections, this talk will reveal the woman behind the myth.

Irish Homes and Houses: 1950s magazines for homeowners | Dr Stephanie Rains

The 1950s saw a rapid increase in home ownership as well as the construction of entire new estates everywhere from the Dublin suburbs to small towns across the country. A new generation of first-time homeowners found themselves in possession of houses to decorate and furnish, gardens to plant, and roofs or plumbing to worry about. The National Library of Ireland’s periodicals collection holds the complete run Irish Home: the national family journal and Homeplanning: the magazine of better living. This talk will highlight the magazines’ mid-century aesthetics as well the insights they offer into the aspirations (if not often the reality) of homeowners who hoped for ‘better living’ in 1950s Ireland.

A Revival Can Only Be New Once: The Last Tailteann Games, 1932 | Dr Conor Heffernan

In June 1932, the Irish Free State staged the third and final modern Tailteann Games. Conceived in the 1920s as an international festival of Irish sport, culture and national ambition, the Games had once promised to rival the Olympics. Drawing on material held by the National Library of Ireland, including contemporary newspapers, programmes, photographs and promotional material, this talk explores how the final Games were presented to the public and what their decline reveals about the early Free State. The talk will show how the Tailteann Games moved from confident state-building project to contested historical inheritance, and why their disappearance mattered.

Researching Michael Davitt in the National Library | Carla King

Michael Davitt was a member of the National Library and refers to a visit in one of his diaries. Carla King will briefly introduce Michael Davitt and his career, before addressing the range of sources available, in the form of manuscripts, books, pamphlets and journals, in microfilm and online.

Description supplied by the event organiser.