By Dan Walsh
As part of the programme for National Heritage Week, Monksgrange Archives are hosting lecture programme Heritage Afternoon at Monksgrange, Rathnure, next Sunday starting at 2pm, where most focus is reserved on the opening of the archive’s new Map Room displaying the large plan chest funded last year by the Heritage Council.
The lecture series commences with the launch by Professor Seán Duffy, Trinity College, Dublin, of an index to the letters of Goddard Orpen. This index will provide ease of access for scholars of the medieval period to the content of some 2000 letters by the historian and author of Ireland under the Normans; the letters themselves are held in the archive.
Prof. Duffy specialises in the history of medieval Ireland and writing about Orpen he noted: “His work has not been surpassed, and it cannot be superseded because it is the fons et origo of the professional historiography of Anglo-Norman Ireland.”
Lesley Whiteside, consultant archivist, will talk about the strategy and working methods she engaged in compiling ‘by hand’ this exacting indexing task.
Jeremy Hill will report on the opening of the archive’s new Map Room displaying the large plan chest funded last year by the Heritage Council. He will then give a short and whimsical, illustrated address on the name of an ancestor – Obadiah Tomalin.
Guided visits to the Map Room will be accommodated from 2-2.45pm and from 4.30-5pm.
Tickets at €10 can be purchased on-line through Eventbrite Monksgrange Archives.
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