The first time you visit the National Library of Ireland (NLI) on Kildare Street, you might have the impression that you’re trespassing on private property. Nestled discreetly beside Leinster House behind imposing wrought-iron gates, the sheer architectural grandeur of the venue reveals itself.
By the time you step inside the reception, you are wondering whether the Reader’s Cards available upon request are intended for actual scholars rather than curious visitors like yourself. It leaves you quietly questioning if you ought to be exploring its halls in the first place.
Well, I strongly urge you to step inside. The National Library, as understated in its self-promotion as overstated in its architecture, holds a wealth of public offerings behind its doors. Beyond the grandiose reading room, exhibitions displaying artefacts belonging to Ireland’s greatest writers, events like talks, tours, and book clubs, and, not to mention, the charming, albeit impressively scaled, Lego reconstruction of the building. The NLI has a lot more to offer than might initially meet the eye.
It was one of these events, in fact, that gave me my most recent excuse for wandering in. This was the first in a new series the NLI is launching called ‘Twilight Talks’, as part of the new citywide ‘Dublin by Dusk’ initiative. Held on the last Thursday of each month, the event invites 3-4 members of the public who use the NLI for their research to give a 15-minute presentation on their research topic. While all 4 speakers at the first event worked in academia, the NLI, in theory, invites any member of the public who has engaged with its holdings to pursue a topic of interest. The series aims to raise awareness of the breadth of items housed in NLI collections and to publicise that these are freely available to the general public.
The format of ”Twilight Talks’ is perfect for introducing you to random new topics, the background aspects of which you have varying levels of knowledge just from your standard awareness of Irish history. But what’s really special about these talks, and what makes them most highly recommended, is that they are delivered by people whose passion for their topic really shines through. A fraction of that interest cannot help but be transmitted to the audience in the process.
The first event held in September was a convincing argument as to why initiatives like this deserve more attention. To kick off the evening, Dr Angela Bourke spoke about her research into the life of Sarah Curran, a figure best known for her secret engagement to Robert Emmet, but whose intellectual and creative life merits recognition beyond her association with the United Irishman martyr. It was a moving talk, with excerpts of her surviving letters giving colour to the several tragic circumstances that befell Curran later in her life.
Jumping ahead to another cultural movement several decades later, Dr Carla King spoke about Michael Davitt of the Land League. Again, the tangential yet touching details gleaned from personal manuscripts shone through. Davitt apparently had a habit of ripping up letters sent to him as soon as he had answered them. King shared an anecdote about his little son, who tried to help by ripping up a pile of letters Davitt hadn’t gotten to yet.
Dr Conor Heffernan spoke on the brief and ill-fated project to revive the Tailteann Games, an Olympic-style sporting and cultural festival that took place three times between 1924 and 1932. Sporting a Tailteann jersey of his own, Heffernan examined how the initiative served as a state-building project for the nascent Irish Free State, particularly through the ways it was promoted to the contemporary Irish public. Finally, Dr Stephanie Rains took us to a slightly later era also marked by efforts at national identity construction, this time through the lens of the flourishing 1950s home-magazine industry. Examples of this relatively new magazine genre, with their elegant layouts and refined aesthetics, were used to illustrate the growing aspirations of middle-class homeowners in 1950s Ireland, at a time when home ownership and estate construction were increasing rapidly.
As any student sitting through a lecture delivered by a disinterested professor knows, genuine enthusiasm makes all the difference when absorbing a topic. While expanding your mind beyond the prescribed syllabus is often sidelined in favour of tight schedules, trading a routine evening at the clubhouse bar for a stimulating presentation offers a surprisingly rewarding alternative. Attending events like these serves as a welcome reminder of why we chose to pursue higher education in the first place, for the joy of discovery (unless, perhaps, you study finance, in which case your motivations may lie elsewhere). What a gift to be granted a forum to share that with others, and what a gift to be invited into the room to listen.
However, much like Heffernan said of the 1932 Tailteann Games, “The only problem was: no one bloody went.” This inaugural ‘Twilight Talk’ was quite sparsely attended, with the lecture theatre probably only about half-full. This appears to apply to the NLI in general, with not many aware of the breadth of things to explore, all of it for free. Anyone can apply for a Reader’s Card, and while I haven’t yet tried out any of the reading rooms, there is no way it can be harder to find a seat than in the James Joyce Library. Its programme of events, of which Twilight Talks is only one example, is definitely worth checking out if you are ever looking for an excuse to escape campus.
Do not be put off by the imposing wrought-iron gates, confusing architectural choices or slightly under-informative signposting… Wander in.
By: Rose O’Mara