As we are allowed to expand our horizons to travel anywhere in
Ireland from 29 June, it is worth looking back at some of the tourist accounts
and travel guides relating to Ireland published during the twentieth century.
The first half of the century witnessed the zenith of the Irish railway network
when the whole island was connected by rail. In 1906 a map was published to
accompany the report of the Vice-regal Commission on Railways in Ireland.
It is contained in the Commission’s full report which is available through the
House of Commons Parliamentary papers database on the library website or the
Enhanced Parliamentary Papers Ireland website at http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi. You
can also access the map on Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Rail_Ireland_Viceregal_Commission_1906.jpg.
The Midland and Great Western Railway Company’s branch line to
Clifden ran through our university campus. When you walk from the library
towards Distillery road, you are walking on the railway! If you would like to
read some of the guides to excursions on this and other West of Ireland lines
you can do so at http://mgwr.weebly.com/downloads.html.
We have the original edition of the Midland & Great Western’s detailed handbook
from 1900, Ireland from Sea to Sea but sadly that’s not yet available
digitally.
While lots of travel guides for 19th century Ireland have
been digitised and made available online, fewer volumes from the 20th
century are on offer yet, mostly because quite a lot of the material is still subject
to copyright. You will have to wait for the reopening of the Archives and
Special Collections Room, hopefully in the next few months, in order to read
these volumes for yourself but here are a few illustrations from them to whet
your appetite!
O’Neill Lane, T. Round Erin or Highways and byways in Ireland
(Abbeyfeale, County Limerick: [the author], c.1900).
Irish Tourist Authority. Ireland: Official Guide (Dublin,
c.1946),
Bord Fáilte. Illustrated Ireland guide. (Dublin, 1968),
Newby, Eric & Petry, Diana. Wonders of Ireland: a personal
choice of 484 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969)
In the meantime, though, you might like to try Thomas O’Neill
Russell. The beauties and antiquities of Ireland (1897), and Dorling
Kindersley’s Eyewitness Guide to Ireland (2012), the full text of which
is available through the library catalogue. If you would like to read more
about Irish travel writing the journal Studies in Travel Writing devoted
a special issue to the subject in 2016 (Volume 20, Issue 2) which can also be
accessed via the library catalogue. Enjoy your trips and stay safe!
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