A Peek into the Past, Sources and Stories
Join us on May 1st for a special tour of the National Photographic Archive this Bealtaine Festival!
Join Dr Sinéad McCoole for highlight guided tour of People & Places: Ireland in 19th, 20th & 21st Centuries - focusing on the stories of women in the exhibition.
This tour will walk through images from the 19th century—looking at the the souvenir sellers at the Giant Causeway to Bridget Sweeney, a ‘Gap Girl’ from the Gap of Dunloe, Killarney, Co Kerry—and explore how they represent the Irish at this time. From a family of amateur photographers including Augusta Caroline Dillon, her daughters Ethel and Edith Dillon, her sister-in-law Katherine Dillon who are all depicted holding Kodak box cameras to the image they took of the Widow Kelly, one of their servants at Clonbrock Estate, Galway. Moving into the 20th century, the tour will also stop at the powerful image of the O’Halloran sisters, whose activism following an eviction is well documented, and also touch on the life stories from members of the O’Donovan Rossa Funeral Committee, 1915. The tour will end with a recent acquisition of images from the pandemic, and reflect on over 150 years of photography.
Dr Sinéad McCoole joined the National Library as Head of Exhibitions, Learning and Programming in November 2023. An author who has written extensively on Modern Irish History, she has also as worked as a Curator of exhibitions on Irish history and Irish art both Ireland and the US. Dr McCoole was a member of the Expert Advisory Group on the Irish Government’s Decade of Centenaries, a Historical Advisor to the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme, and Curator of Mná100 the online resource that is part of the Decade of Centenaries, women’s strand 2021-2023.
If our team can be of any assistance, please contact us at learning@nli.ie
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