Curran Collection

CLÓ IAR-CHONNACHTA

National University of Ireland Galway

Micheál Ó Conghaile, a well-known and respected writer, founded the company Cló Iar-Chonnachta in 1985 when he was a university student. CIC publishes Irish-language books and Irish traditional music. Since its inception it has published over 300 books and 150 music albums. CIC sees itself primarily as guardian and patron of Irish language and Gaeltacht culture. In 2010 Michéal donated copies of m ...

John Hume Collection

Ulster University, Magee

Themes covered by the collection include the wide range of material to be expected from a constituency MP and MEP. These include peace-talks, devolution, justice system, prisoners, housing, planning, social security, health, education, Irish language, European lesser-used languages, minority rights, justice, economy, business, industry, agriculture, transport, New Ireland Forum, European Union, co ...

Irish and Local Studies Library, Armagh

Libraries NI, Irish and Local Studies Library, Armagh

Noteworthy are some valuable and scarce titles dealing with "tours in Ireland". Local authors like James Stuart, well known for his work “Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh”, published in 1819 and Rev Henry Boyd, who achieved fame as the first translator of Dante into English – published first in Dublin, 1785 and later in London, 1802 are represented in this collection. The works of many of ...

Bryson & MacAdam Manuscripts Collections

Libraries NI, Belfast Central Library

They were purchased by Belfast Public Libraries in 1989 from the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society. The forty-four volumes in the collection have now been conserved and preserved on microfilm to the highest standard.The manuscripts, which date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centurys were collected by Dr Samuel Bryson and Robert MacAdam in the mid-1800’s. Both Bryson and MacAdam ...

Hibernica Collection

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

The Hibernica Collection, or Henry Collection as it was previously known, is a substantial collection of monographs, periodicals and pamphlets of general Irish interest and/or origin, being strongest in history and literature, and also including works of Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Officially established in 1929 with a deposit of 1000 volumes from the personal library of R.M. Henry (Profess ...

Eleanor Knott Collection

Royal Irish Academy

Papers of Eleanor Marie Knott, 1886-1975, Old-Irish scholar and academic. Including correspondence, notebooks, drafts and printed material. In 1939 she was appointed Professor of early Irish in Trinity College Dublin and was one of the first women elected to the Royal Irish Academy. From 1911 onwards she worked on the 'Dictionary of the Irish language' for the Royal Irish Academy, was active in th ...

Mary O'Hara papers

Boston College, John J. Burns Library

The Mary O'Hara papers document the performances, public career, and personal life of Irish soprano and harpist Mary O'Hara. The collection highlights her early rise to fame in the 1950s until her entrance to Stanbrook Abbey in 1962, as well her return to her music career in 1974 until her retirement in 1994. O'Hara was married to the American poet Richard Selig from 1956 until his death in 1957, ...

Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Papers

Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Memorial Library & Archive

The Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Papers consist of the late Primate's personal and academic papers, including unpublished lectures and articles, his research work in Irish history, the Irish language and literature, ecclesaistical history and Irish links overseas.

Nally Collection

Royal Irish Academy

Papers of Edward Vincent Nally [Éamonn Mhac Fhailigh], 1907-1992 of Emper, Ballynacargy. Nally was a school-teacher who maintained a life-long interest in both Irish and Hiberno-English. His major work, The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo: a phonemic study was published in 1968. He was a contributor to Éigse, Celtica, and Dinnseanchas and also published an article on the Hiberno-English dialect of his na ...

Northern Ireland Place Name Project Sound Archive

Northern Ireland Place-Name Project

Collection of sound recordings and associated transcripts compiled by the Northern Ireland Place name Project at Queen's University Belfast. Established in 1987, the Northern Ireland Place Name Project was set up to "research the origin of all names of settlements and physical features in Northern Ireland appearing on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale map; to indicate their meaning and to note an ...

Upton Collection

Royal Irish Academy

Personal papers of Henry A. S. Upton of Coolatore, Moate, Co. Westmeath, 1870-1947, an amateur genealogist and local historian. The bulk of collection consists of 20th century transcripts of legal and historical documents dating from the 17th century to the 19th century used to trace genealogies of various Irish gentry families in counties Westmeath, Laois and Offaly. The collection also includes ...

Contemporary Music Centre

Contemporary Music Centre

The Contemporary Music Centre houses the only comprehensive collection of Irish classical music in existence. It is a collection of works by some 130 Irish composers of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. It also contains information materials of all kinds from concert programmes, biographical data, photographs and press clippings to specialist periodicals and books. The sound archive conta ...

Delargy Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

Séamus Ó Duilearga (1899-1980), born in Cushendall, Co. Antrim, was a student of Celtic Studies in UCD when a chance meeting in 1921 with Norwegian folklorist Reidar Thorolf Christiansen launched him on what was to become a lifetime of collecting and safeguarding Ireland’s folk heritage. He was a founding member of the Folklore of Ireland Society in 1926 and editor of its journal Béaloideas . Foll ...

Additional Music collection

National Library of Ireland

The Additional Music Collection contains approximately 13, 000 items. It consists of printed sheet music, vocal music, (mostly popular songs) piano music, ballads, piano arrangements of opera numbers, instrumental music for piano and harp, Irish country dances, collections and arrangements of Irish airs and variations and miscellaneous material.

Shields Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

The library of Arthur Shields (1896-1970), Irish stage and film actor.

Windele Collection

Royal Irish Academy

Collection relating to the history and antiquities of Cork and the Munster region in particular. The collection includes a large volume of correspondence between Windele and major nineteenth-century Irish antiquarians. The coverage is very broad, including music, finds of antiquities, history, folklore and the Irish language.

St. Anthony's Rare Book Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

The St. Anthony's Rare Book Collection, numbering c. 280 items, formed part of the library of St. Anthony's Franciscan College which was acquired by UCG in 1992. The collection contains many rare and interesting works on topics ranging in scope from theology and apologetics to bardism and Norse mythology.

Dublin City Public Libraries: Dublin and Irish Collections

Dublin City Libraries, Pearse Street Library

Dublin City Library and Archive at Pearse Street houses the Dublin and Irish Collections (Special Collections and Early Printed Books) of Dublin City Public Libraries and Dublin City Archives. The Special Collections are made up of approximately twelve major collections. The best known of these are the Gilbert Library, the Dix Collection, the Yeats Collection and the Swift Collection. The emphasis ...

McAllister Collection: Church History Pamphlets

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

This is a collection of pamphlets accumulated by James McAllister, lecturer in Economic History at Queen’s University Belfast 1973-2007. He had a particular interest in local history and is noted for compiling ‘A Belfast chronicle 1789: a compilation from the Belfast Newsletter.’ He collected a range of books, articles and pamphlets relating to religion in Ireland. This collection contains pamphle ...

RTE Sound Library

The RTÉ Sound Library collection consists of commercially released sound recordings from the 1930s to date. Popular music makes up the largest part of the collection but there are also significant quantities of classical and traditional music.

Kevin Boyle Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

The Kevin Boyle Collection (archive and library) is a wealth of material in the fields of human rights and law research and scholarship. Focus on the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, the Troubles, international freedom of expression and freedom of religious belief defence reflects Boyle's contributions to the discipline of human rights. The Collection was donated to NUIG by Joan Boyle an ...

John McCormack Collection

University College Dublin

The McCormack collection consists of printed music scores in fine bindings. It includes the complete works of Bach and Handel. It also contains many late 19th century compilations of Irish melodies. This material was bequeathed to UCD in 1945.

Bairéad Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

This collection contains a wealth of Irish language material and ephemeral material from the early days of the Gaelic revival movements, as collected by Stiophán (1867-1921) and Ciarán (1905-1976) Bairéad. Síghle Bairéad (1903-1985) donated this material to the Library in 1976 in memory of her father Stiophán, first treasurer of the Gaelic League, and of her brother Ciarán, a collector with the Ir ...

Traditional Music Collection, Hillery Public Library, Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare

Clare County Library

Traditional Irish Music Collection

O’Neill Collection of Traditional Irish Music

University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Libraries

The O'Neill Collection reflects Francis O'Neill's work of studying, collecting and preserving Irish traditional music, particularly dance music. Books and articles on Irish music include occasional pencil annotations in margins, often checkmarks or notes on an alternative name for a tune. The Library was given by Captain O'Neill to the University of Notre Dame in 1931.

Special Collections, Main Collections

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

There are three main collections grouped by date. These include Early Printed Books (Pre-1701), 18th Century Books and Pamphlets (including the Foster Pamphlet Collection) and 19th and 20th Century book collection of first editions and other rarities. The subject-based collections consist of the Hibernica Collection of books relating to and/or published in Ireland, the MacDouall Collection of earl ...

Mac Fhinn Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

Collection of 300+ items accumulated by Msgr. Eric Mac Fhinn (1895-1987) of Co. Galway, UCG lecturer in education (through Irish) 1931-1965.

O'Rahilly Collection

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

Collection of Irish manuscripts and printed books annotated by the distinguished Celtic Scholar, T.F. O’Rahilly (1883-1953). A relatively small assemblage of material, the books are extensively annotated by O'Rahilly and include a range of titles on Irish dialect, grammar and Irish Literature, dating from c 1849-1937. Among the authors featured are Brian Merriman (1749-1805), Joseph Henry Lloyd, P ...

Larkin Collection

National University of Ireland Galway

The library of Professor Patrick Larkin (Education Department, UCG) and his wife Rita Larkin.

MacAdam Manuscript

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

The manuscript consists of some 23 folios arranged alphabetically and containing the completed results of MacAdam's attempts to compile an English-Irish Dictionary in collaboration with the native Irish speaker, Hugh MacDonnell of Co. Meath. The completed work contains approximately 1,145 pages which have been tabulated into 4 columns to record the various entries. All but Letter F and the beginni ...

Flann O'Brien collection

Boston College, John J. Burns Library

The Flann O'Brien Collection contains a wide variety of materials: papers, books, art works, and personal memorabilia. Materials in this collection are dated from 1884 to 1991, thus predating and postdating the life of Flann O'Brien (1911-1966). Most of the materials date between 1935 and 1975. The arrangement and description follows closely the vendor's list received with the collection. Organize ...

MacDouall Collection

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

Collection of general literature, Sanskrit and comparative philology from the personal library of Charles MacDouall (1818-1883), first Professor of Latin at Queen's College, Belfast (1849-50) and second Professor of Greek (1850-78). The collection includes material relating to Classical, Eastern and Middle Eastern languages, and comparative philology, principally from the first half of the 19th ce ...

John F. Deane papers

Boston College, John J. Burns Library

The John F. Deane papers includes correspondence, manuscripts, diaries, scrapbooks and newspaper clippings related to Deane's life, literary output and career as a literary editor. The correspondents include Samuel Beckett, Daniel Berrigan, Alaine Bosquet, Padraig Daly, Paul Durcan, John Ennis, Monk Gibbon, Robert Graecen, Michael Hamburger, Seamus Heaney, Richard Kell, Thomas Kinsella, Philip Lar ...

Bunting Collection

Queen's University Belfast, Special Collections

The collection consists mainly of musical manuscripts compiled and notated by Bunting during the festival and on his subsequent tour of Ireland, 1792-c 1810 and notebooks of lyrics in both Roman and Gaelic script compiled by the Irish Scholar, Patrick Lynch of Loughinisland, Co. Down, during his tour in 1802 which he undertook on Bunting’s behalf. Other miscellaneous items of note include a memoir ...

Kathleen Daly Clarke papers and collection of Thomas Clarke and Irish political materials

Boston College, John J. Burns Library

The papers contain correspondence, photographs, artwork, ephemera, and clippings documenting the life and career of Kathleen Daly Clarke, while Clarke's collection includes materials about her husband Thomas Clarke and Irish politics during the early- to mid-1900s. Of note are cards she received from political figures, including Eamon de Valera, Douglas Hyde, and Sean Ó Ceallaigh, some of which w ...

BBC Northern Ireland Archive

BBC Northern Ireland Archive

The BBC Northern Ireland Archive is a comprehensive collection of archive material previously broadcast by and/or originating from the BBC in Northern Ireland, since its establishment in 1924 to the present day. It consists of some 8,000 radio programmes (c 1924-c 1999), 500 cans of film (c 1959-79), the BBC NI Press Office Collection of approx. 10,000 publicity photographs and negatives, press re ...

Séamus Connolly papers

Boston College, John J. Burns Library

The Séamus Connolly papers document aspects of the music career of Irish traditional fiddle player Séamus Connolly. All materials were donated by Séamus Connolly. The collection highlights Connolly’s career as a performing artist as well as his commitment to preserving Irish traditional music through teaching and community outreach. The collection includes various printed materials, including post ...

Nawn Collection, Enniskillen

Libraries NI, Enniskillen Library

The Nawn Collection consists of books on Irish studies and Fermanagh local history. Titles in the collection include "The life of William Bedell …" by Gilbert Burnet, 1692; "A view of ancient and modern Dublin, with its improvements to the year 1796 …" by John Ferrar, 1796; Dr Robert Clayton's "A vindication of the histories of the Old and New Testamernt …", 1752; Patrick Delany's "Eighteen discou ...

The Irish Traditional Music Archive

Irish Traditional Music Archive

The Archive’s primary remit covers the island of Ireland and the Irish diaspora – Irish-Britain, Irish-America, Irish-Australia etc. – and all those performers of Irish traditional music throughout the world who are not of Irish blood. It also collects traditional music from other countries in a representative way in order to provide a national access point to these musics and to the world of ethn ...

Omagh Library Local Studies Collection

Libraries NI, Omagh Library

The Local Studies collection held at Omagh Library is extensive and specialises in the history of Tyrone, its towns and villages from the earliest times. Material is available in a variety of formats - books, journals, microfilm, fiche and maps. The Library has a collection of over 1,000 photographs - old and contemporary. A copy of the Lawrence Collection is held on microfilm. Files of informatio ...

Irish & Reference Collection

Linen Hall Library

This collection is the centrepiece of the Linen Hall Library, and has been referred to as "the jewel in the crown" of local studies librarianship in Northern Ireland. Although founded in 1788 with the purpose of collecting "such materials as will illustrate the antiquities, the natural, civil, commercial and ecclesiastical history of this country" the Linen Hall Library did not start to collect Ir ...

Irish Language Collection

Linen Hall Library

The Irish Language Collection at the Linen Hall Library is the largest collection of the languages of Ulster held at the Linen Hall Library. It consists of books, periodicals, off-prints of articles from magazines and some newspaper cuttings files. Subjects covered in the collection range from social history, biographies through to material which might be useful to a student of the Irish language. ...

Northern Ireland Political Collection

Linen Hall Library

The Northern Ireland Political Collection is recognised internationally as a unique and important resource comprising a wide range of published and unpublished materials relating to the conflict or “Troubles” in Northern Ireland from 1966 onwards. Containing books, pamphlets, reports, manifestos, photographs, press-cuttings, audio-visual material, stickers, leaflets, Christmas cards and posters, e ...

Fine Book Room Collection

Libraries NI, Belfast Central Library

Belfast Central Library, since its foundation in 1888, has built up an outstanding collection of rare books, manuscripts and archives, which now constitute the Special Collections. The majority of these resources are housed in the Fine Book Room. The collections include landmark examples of printing in Europe over the last five centuries, including examples of fine typography, magnificently illust ...

Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Memorial Library and Archive

Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Memorial Library & Archive

The Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Memorial Library and Archive is a unique cultural and historical resource located in the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, Armagh. The Library is a free, independent public reference library, which houses important collections relating to Irish history, the Irish language, ecclesiastical history, the Irish abroad and Irish sport. The Cardinal Ó Fiaich Library houses a ...

Micheline Kerney Walsh Overseas Archive

Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Memorial Library & Archive

The Micheline Kerney Walsh Overseas Archive was previously known as the Overseas Archive and was housed in the Department of Archives at University College, Dublin. This collection contains research materials gleaned primarily from Spanish and French Archives, relating to the Irish Diaspora of 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century Europe. The Archive was founded in 1954 by Prof. Patrick McBride of the ...

Mulvey Papers

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)

Political and personal papers of Anthony J. Mulvey MP (1882-1957), Nationalist MP for Fermanagh-Tyrone, 1935-50 and Mid-Tyrone, 1950-51. Dating from 1941 to 1955 this collection is particularly comprehensive for the period between 1945 and 1947 and contains mainly material of relevance to Mulvey’s political and parliamentary career during which he was, for a time, the principal Irish Nationalist r ...

NIPR Collection

NIPR (Northern Ireland Publications Resource)

NIPR is sponsored by the Library & Information Services Council (Northern Ireland) to list books, reports, pamphlets and journals published in Northern Ireland since January 2001. NIPR includes bibliographic information about every sort of publication - from short church histories to children’s books and academic monographs. Two copies of all titles are acquired through voluntary donation by the p ...

UFTM Sound Archive

National Museums NI, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

The brief of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum is to record and preserve the way of life, past and present, of the people of Northern Ireland. The contents of the Museum’s Sound Archive reflects this brief, comprising mainly oral history recordings made by curatorial members of staff and other interested persons, traditional Irish music, folk tunes and songs, recitals recorded by and at UFTM, c ...

Catalog Ghaeilge Collection

St Mary's University College

The material in this collection is in the Irish language. It consists of books, journals and multi-media. It has a broad subject range, though there is a strong emphasis on literature and teaching material. Included in the collection are materials produced by the College.

Northern Ireland Place Name Project Database

Northern Ireland Place-Name Project

Research database containing information compiled as part of the Northern Ireland Place Name Project from 1987 onwards and based at Queen's University Belfast. The database consists of details recording all place-names and locations shown on the 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey map of Northern Ireland and the names of townlands, civil parishes and baronies for Counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Derry, Fermana ...

Rare Books Collection

Union Theological College, The Gamble Library

The Rare Books Collection contains around 8,000 books dating from the sixteenth century to approximately the mid nineteenth century. Covering a broad range of subjects, it is particularly strong in theology, history and literature. The collection is arranged in chronological order and can be searched on the British Library's English Short Title Catalogue.

Ulster Folk & Transport Museum Archival Collections

National Museums NI, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

The Archives maintained by the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum have been collected to support the collecting remit of the museum with special reference to folk life and transport. Overall the archival collections consist of over half a million items. They cover subjects such as air, land and sea transport, settlement and dwelling, crafts, costume and textiles, agriculture, working life, community l ...

John Hewitt Collection

Ulster University, Coleraine

The literary archive covers over 50 years of Hewitt's prolific and varied writing career. It contains notebooks of poems composed between 1926 and 1984, over 3,500 of which are unpublished. The manuscript material includes drafts of autobiography, radio scripts from the 1940's and notes for his book about the rhyming weavers. There are also short stories, verse plays and reviews of books and art e ...

Ulster Dialect & Linguistic Diversity Archive

National Museums NI, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

Unique assemblage of books, wordlists, research papers and notes etc relating to the study of Ulster Dialect and the process of dialect collection. This collection consists of material gathered together by a variety of interested individuals and institutions including Sir John Byers, Professor R.J. Gregg, R H Montgomery, T.G.F. Paterson and Brendan Adams. It comprises research notes and recordings ...

Henry Morris Collection

Ulster University, Coleraine

The Henry Morris Collection held at the University of Ulster contains material on Irish history, folklore, language and literature in Irish and English. This Collection is especially rich in older material in Irish reflecting the interests of its owner. Henry Morris was a keen folklorist, educationalist and scholar.

Sir John Byers Collection

National Museums NI, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

Collection of Ulster Dialect items manually recorded by Sir John Byers, c 1890-1910, and examples of proverbs and sayings (dialectal and otherwise) and folklore. The material was collected by Byers, a medical doctor, out of personal interest in this subject area and was recorded from the dialect content of the speech of his patients and from items found in the local press, in particular the Ballym ...

Special Collections

Ulster University, Coleraine

The Special Collections at the University of Ulster at Coleraine are held separate from the main collection. The collections include Henry Davis gift of early printed books and fine bindings, Headlam-Morley Collection of World War I and the Peace Treaty, Henry Morris Collection of Irish literature, language, history and folklore, Irish Collection, Denis Johnston Collection, Francis Stuart Collecti ...

UFTM Library and Document Archive

National Museums NI, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

The Library and documentary archive of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum has been accumulated to support the various subjects and collecting interest of the Museum. These include, domestic life and architecture, transport, textiles, folklore, local history, language and culture. The Library has a book collection of some 25,000 volumes and holds two hundred periodical titles. The document archiv ...

Local History Collection, Derry Central Library

Libraries NI, Derry Central Library

The Local History Collection at Derry Central Library consists of a large collection of books on both local and Irish history. The Library is particularly interested in preserving the local history of the city and all aspects of its social and economic development. It is the Library's policy to collect all material published by or about local authors, hence there are collections relating to Seamus ...

Brendan Adams Collection

National Museums NI, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

Eclectic collection of research papers by Brendan Adams (1917-1981), linguist and Dialect Archivist of the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum , c. 1964-81. The papers included in this collection relate mostly to the progress of dialect collection in the North of Ireland, but also features comment on a diverse range of subjects with which Adams' was interested including place names, Shelta, Irish Langu ...