At the half-way point in this year's Galway International Arts Festival, it is a good time to catch a breath after what has been such a packed week of the festival. This year being the first 'International' Galway Arts Festival (though of course it always was International!) it is a good opportunity to open up the archive of the Galway Arts Festival and look back at some of the hits and big events from over the years.
We are proud to hold the archive of the Galway Arts Festival here at the James Hardiman Library. It is a rich resource of history, great memories, major names and acts from all spectrum of the Arts and a record of just how the Arts Festival has grown and developed over the years, where today it stands as one of the great international arts festivals.
Here we open up some of the archives to see just how strong the programming was from its early years in the 1980s. Theatre names such as Druid of course stand out, along with Footsbarn Theatre Company and also a version of Waiting for Godot by Jim Sheridan . Literary names are full of heavy-hitters like John McGahern, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Kilroy and Paul Durcan to name a few. Art exhibitions from Robert Ballagh, Brian Boske, Patricia Burke-Brogan and others filled the visual art programme. Music from Padraig O'Carra, De Dannan, Doloros Keane, again to just but a few, were among the musical acts.
We hope you enjoy just a few highlights from the Galway Arts Festival Archive. The Archive catalogue can be viewed in full here and any queries please be in touch! Email - library@nuigalway.ie
A set of 20 photographs, mainly from 1904, the Anderson Family Photographs
refer to Alexander Anderson and his family, and show life in Galway University
at a time of transition both for the family themselves and society as a whole.
Anderson was the first person to suggest the existence of black holes and
the first to speculate about what would happen if a star collapsed under its
own gravity. He was a great man, whose ideas were ahead of his
time. Anderson was a teacher and researcher in Experimental and
Mathematical Physics as well as being an able University Administrator.
He devoted much of his life to University College Galway.
Originally from Coleraine, Anderson began his career at Queen’s College Galway
in 1877. He graduated in 1880 with a gold medal for his BA. He then
took first place in an open scholarship to Sydney Sussex College in the
University of Cambridge where he studied Physics and Mathematics and came out
as sixth wrangler in 1884. He returned to Galway in 1885 and shortly
after, succeeded Joseph Larmor as Professor of Natural Philosophy. He was
also president of Queen’s College Galway for thirty-five years.
Anderson’s interest in the practical applications of physics is illustrated by
the fact that his department was providing a medical radiography service in
Galway from 1898. He was also involved in industrially sponsored
research. Around 1899 the Eastman-Kodak Company provided a fellowship for
the study of X-ray photography. Unfortunately the tissue of a child was
damaged and scarred by an X-ray exposure. This activity attracted
worldwide attention, as it was the cause of probably the first instance of
litigation on the injurious effects of ionising radiation though the verdict
was in favour of the College. (Details of the case are available from one
of our small collections, P61, at http://archives.library.nuigalway.ie/col_level.php?col=P61
).
During his career in Galway, Anderson ensured that the Physics department
had state of the art equipment including the then newly invented X-ray and
radio apparatus and cathode ray tubes. It is said of Anderson that his
primary interest lay in teaching and that he was rarely content to give a piece
of theory from a textbook without first improving or simplifying it.
He married Emily, daughter of William J. Binns of
the National Bank in Galway; they had a son and three daughters. Mrs Anderson
was active in reform organisations and, with her daughters, attended local
suffrage meetings; they were founder members of the Connaught Women's Franchise
League in Galway in January 1913. Their daughter Emily was educated privately
before entering QCG in 1908; she won a literary scholarship after an
exceptional performance in her first-year examinations, when she placed first
in English, French, German and Latin; in 1909 and 1910 she held the college's
Browne scholarship, and in 1911 graduated BA. She specialised in German, and
undertook postgraduate work at the universities of Berlin and Marburg. She was
professor of German in UCG from 1917 till her resignation in 1920, when she
moved to the Foreign Office in London. She was awarded an OBE for intelligence
work in the Middle East, and translated and published The
letters of Mozart and his family (1938) and The
letters of Beethoven (1961). With her mother she was a founding member
of the Connaught Women's Franchise League.
Their only son, also Alexander, enlisted in the 4th
Connaught Rangers Battalion as a lieutenant, and was attached to the Royal
Flying Corps. He was reported missing on 23 November 1916 and ended up as a
Prisoner of War. He was awarded a B. Sc. (Honoris Causa) in 1917 and later
appears on the Army List for the Connaught Rangers from 1918-1920.
The photographs are part of the research material
gathering by the late Dr. Tom O’Connor, Department of Physics, for work he did
on a history of that department. They give us a fascinating glimpse into the
lives of the Anderson family who grew up on the grounds of University College
Galway.
With the summer in full swing, and Galway all set for the Arts Festival and Race Week, we thought it would be a good time to mention one of our recently acquired small collections, a set of 18 postcards from the Galway area ranging in date from c.1900 to c.1950. Postcards of Galway, in common with the rest of Ireland, grew with the evolution of tourism in the early twentieth century, with tourist venues like Salthill and Conamara featuring heavily. Begun by a number of English companies, local photographers also go involved. For more on the evolution of postcards of Galway see Paul Duffy's recent publication "Postcards of Galway".
The Emergency: Ireland in wartime, 27-28 June 2014
A great conference upcoming here on campus at NUI Galway,
coming at the 75th anniversary of World War II, will focus on it's place in an
Irish context, known as 'the Emergency'. With renowned international and Irish
keynote speakers including Robert Fisk, Brian Girvin, T. Ryle Dwyer, Mervyn
O'Driscoll and Michael Kennedy, as well as a wide range of academics and
scholars, it promises to be a really interesting two days. For full conference
details click here.
Schedule
Friday 27 June
Coffee and Welcome
09.30
Panel 1: “High Diplomacy”
10.00 – 11.30
·Dr Paul McNamara (NUI, Galway)
·Mr Steven Murphy (UniversityCollegeCork)
·Dr Barry Whelan (NUI, Maynooth)
Coffee
11.30 – 12.00
Keynote
12.00 – 13.00
·Dr Mervyn O’Driscoll (UniversityCollegeCork)
Lunch
13.00 – 14.00
Panel 2: “Wartime shortages in an international context”
14.00 – 15.15 (Room G010)
·Dr Bryce Evans (LiverpoolHopeUniversity)
·Dr Peter Rigney (TrinityCollegeDublin)
Panel 3: “Exiles in Ireland”
14.00 – 15.15 (Room G011)
·Dr Gisela Holfter (University of Limerick)
·Ms Neasa McGarrigle (TrinityCollegeDublin)
Coffee
15.15 – 15.30
Keynote
15.30 - 16.30
·Prof. Brian Girvin (GlasgowUniversity)
Film screening
17.00 – 19.00
·The Enigma of Frank Ryan
·Q & A: Prof. Des Bell with Dr Fearghal McGarry
Conference Keynote
20.00 – 21.30
·Dr Robert Fisk (venue: Radisson Hotel)
Saturday 28 June
Panel 4: “A land of opportunity”?
09.45– 10.45
·Dr Jackie Uí Chionna (NUI, Galway)
·Dr Bozena Cierlick (UniversityCollegeCork)
Coffee
10.45 – 11.00
Panel 5: “Britain’s war in an Irish context”
11.00 – 12.30
(Room G010)
·Dr Pat McCarthy (Military History Society of Ireland)
·Dr Steven O'Connor (TrinityCollegeDublin)
·Mr Joseph Quinn (TrinityCollegeDublin)
Panel 6: “Employment options – Ireland and the United Kingdom”
Spotted on the online film archive of British Pathè recently is this gem of a film regarding the return of the historic mace and sword of Galway City. The sword and mace, both beautifully crafted by local silversmiths in the early 17th Century and early 18th Century respectively, with the great mace being presented to the town of Galway by Edward Eyre, Mayor of Galway, in 1712.
When Galway Corporation was dissolved in 1841, and as the Pathè film recounts, the then Mayor of Galway was owed considerable salary in arrears and he was given the two insignia." The items were later sold to an art dealer by the daughter of the Mayor and the mace and sword were eventually bought by American newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hurst. The mother of Hurst, Phoebe Elizabeth Hurst, neè Anderson, was of Irish lineage with her family having connection to Galway.
Prior to this transaction of sale of the mace and sword, it was noted in the Galway Observer, January 28, 1933, that: "It is learned that the Galway Urban Council has been in communication with a Government Department and has represented to the latter the necessity for purchasing the Sword and Mace of the Old Galway Corporation and housing these in the National Museum. The Government reply, while non committal is couched in sympathetic terms.
Through the recent reports in the public Press in reference to the discovery of the Sword and Mace of Galway Corporation and their presentation probably when recovered to the National Museum, the epithet "Blakes of Galway" has come again into popular prominence says the "Tuam Herald" the student of history may remember these historic emblems occupied at one time their allotted positions in the local Council Chamber, until 1841, when through the passing of the Municipal Corporation Act the Corporations of Galway was dissolved. At the time financial stringency was so acute that the salary £8,000 due to the Mayor, Mr. Edmund Blake was liquidated before the Corporation went out of office by the handling over of the Sword and Mace to the Mayor. When Mr. Edmund Blake died in 1905 the sword and mace came into possession of his daughter, Miss Anne Blake, who decided to dispose of them a few years after. The Civic Emblems were then sold to Mr. Louis Wine, art dealer, of Grafton Street, Dublin, who now possesses them."
The mace and sword were purchased in 1938 by Hurst and did end up going to America to reside in Hurst Castle, San Simeon, California and there they remained until 1961 when they were returned to Galway by the Hurst Corporation, following the death of William Randolph Hurst in 1951, as a gesture to the city and people of Galway. The ceremony to mark this event was attended by a large crowd and took place at the Aula Maxima here on campus of then University College Galway. The ceremony was attended by Taoiseach Sean Lemass and Mayor James Redington of Galway.
A wonderful and in-depth article on the history of the Galway civic mace and sword, written by past Professor of History here at NUI Galway (then U.C.G.) Prof. G. A. Hayes-McCoy, "The Galway Sword and Mace" and is published in the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 29, No. 1/2 (1960), pp. 15-36. (For those of you with Jstor subscriptions it is available to read here)
Today and since their return, the Galway Civic Sword and Mace reside here in Galway and are in the Galway City Museum. Great to have them here at home!
Here are details of a great upcoming conference being organised by the Department of History, NUI Galway. "Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I: Europe and the Wider World". The conference will provide a forum of debate for transnational and comparative approaches to the history of small nations and Europe's colonial peripheries in World War 1 in the context of the epochal changes brought by the collapse of large imperial states.
On the 1st May the Hardiman Research Building was officially launched by Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn, T.D. The Hardiman Building is an exciting development and a key departure on campus that will unify research and unique resources in the Hardiman Library and with Humanities and Social Sciences at NUI Galway.
Located next to the Hardiman Library, the new Research Building comprises the new home for Archives and Special Collections, Digitisation, Research Support and other Library services as well as creating a collaborative space for research through the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies and the Whitaker Institute for Innovation and Societal Change. The Moore Institute is a leading voice in digital humanities, medieval and early modern history and literature and travel and cultural encounter. The Whitaker Institute, honouring the enduring contribution of public servant T.K. Whitaker, is the largest national business and social science institute on the island.
Part of the launch of the Hardiman Building is a showcase exhibition, "Performing Ireland: A Digital Journey Through Irish Theatre", the first from the ongoing major digitisation project of the archive of the Abbey Theatre. More on the Abbey Theatre archive can be seen here.
You can read more on the exhibition and the launch in the Irish Times here and also watch RTÉ news coverage here. 'Morning Ireland' on RTÉ Radio 1 also carried a feature on the Abbey Theatre exhibition and this can be listened to here.
Here are a selection of images from yesterday's launch of the Hardiman Building.
John Cox, Librarian, Hardiman Library, Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn T.D., Prof. James Browne, President NUI Galway
Prof. James Cunningham, John Cox, Prof. Dan Carey, Ruairi Quinn T.D., Prof. James Browne
The Hardiman Research Building
Abbey Theatre costumes on display outside the Hardiman Library
Selection of Abbey Theatre props from "The Picture of Dorian Grey"
Props from Abbey Theatre production of 'Hamlet'
Abbey Theatre costume team installing costumes for the "Performing Ireland" exhibition at NUI Galway
