Dublin By Dusk | Twilight Talks
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.
Dr Angela Byrne is a Donegal native and a historian specialising in the experiences of migrants and women in the past. She works at the Dictionary of Irish Biography (Royal Irish Academy) and has previously held research and lecturing positions at the universities of Toronto, Greenwich, Ulster and Maynooth, and at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. She has published widely and has held research fellowships across Europe and North America. Her most recent books include Anarchy and Authority: Irish Encounters with Romanov Russia (Lilliput Press, 2024) and Finding Mary: The Untold Story of an Inishowen Murder, 1844 (Four Courts Press, 2025). She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Stephanie Rains is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Maynooth University, where she teaches and researches Irish media and cultural history. Her forthcoming book, Twentieth-Century Holidaymaking: from Ballybunion to Benidorm, will be published by Cork University Press. Her previous books include Advertising and Consumer Culture in Ireland, 1922-1962: Buy Irish, published by Liverpool University Press in 2022 and Commodity Culture and Social Class in Dublin, 1850-1916, published by Irish Academic Press in 2010.
Conor Heffernan is a Lecturer in the Social Sciences of Sport at Ulster University and a historian of sport, physical culture and strength. His work has appeared in journals including History, Irish Historical Studies and the American Historical Review. He is currently writing a history of the Tailteann Games and their place in the cultural and political life of the Irish Free State.
Carla King formerly lectured at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. She has published various works relating to Davitt, including Michael Davitt After the Land League, 1882-1906 ((UCD Press, 2016); Michael Davitt (HAI, Life and Times Series 1999); Michael Davitt: Collected Writings, 1868-1906 (8 vols., 2001), Michael Davitt, Jottings in Solitary (UCD Press, 2003); Lives of Victorian Political Figures, Part II, vol. 4: Michael Davitt (2007); and co-edited with W.J. Mc Cormack, John Devoy’s Michael Davitt: From the Gaelic American (UCD Press, 2008). She has also published articles on Davitt and other subjects in scholarly and popular journals
Discover more
