Library Exhibitions

The Library regularly organises exhibitions highlighting its rich collections of books, prints, drawings and manuscripts.

Latest exhibition

Columba 1500 / Colm Cille 1500

As part of a year-long commemoration and celebration of the 1500th anniversary of the birth of Colum Cille (Columba) (c.521-597), this online exhibition will focus on a range of Columban texts held by the Royal Irish Academy and explore the traditions associated with them

Curated by the Library, in collaboration with Foclóir Stairiúil na Gaeilge, the exhibition will highlight the rich treasures associated with Columba in the Royal Irish Academy. The exhibition is related to an upcoming lunchtime lecture series, organised in collaboration with Coiste Léann na Gaeilge, Litríocht na Gaeilge agus na gCultúr Ceilteach, which is also part of the 1500th commemorative programme.

Explore more of our online exhibitions

An investigation of the origins of the early medieval Irish manuscript known as the Stowe Missal

‘Made in Tallaght’ »

An online illustrated talk on one of Dublin's oldest suburbs and some myths that have emerged about the gate

Stories of St James's Gate - the gate, not the brewery »

Discover the nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey Letters and drawings of Dublin

Surveying Dublin »

From little known artists to well-established writers, this exhibition turns the spotlight on creative women from the Academy’s archives

Creative women of Ireland: artists and writers from the archives »

An online exhibition exploring the themes of memory and narrative of Irish history, poetry, law, medicine and religion, as well as the stories of those who made these great books of Ireland

Aon amharc ar Éirinn: Gaelic families and their manuscripts »

An exhibition exploring the varied worlds of five women selected as Honorary Members of the Academy in the nineteenth century

'Prodigies of learning': Academy women in the nineteenth century »

A new exhibition at the Royal Irish Academy Library, in collaboration with Queen’s University Belfast

Discovering Thomas Moore: Ireland in nineteenth-century Europe »

The exhibition and lunchtime lecture series commemorating the 350th anniversary of Jonathan Swift's birth now available as an online exhibition

"To please and to reform mankind" a life of protest: Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745 »

An exhibition featuring a selection of Dublin manuscripts from the Haliday Collection

Dublin documents: highlights from Charles Haliday's manuscript collection »

A series of online exhibitions exploring the treasures of the Royal Irish Academy Library, sketches and drawings from the Library's collections, and travelling with Mícheál Ó Cléirigh

Heritage Week 2020 »

To mark the bicentenary of the death of Gabriel Beranger on 18 February, 1817, this exhibition features a selection of original watercolours from the Royal Irish Academy collection

Beranger’s Ireland: eighteenth-century watercolours by Gabriel Beranger, c.1729-1817 »

An online exhibition looking at the Gaelic literary culture of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century

Another View: Gaelic manuscript culture in Edmund Spenser’s Ireland »

An online exhibition 'Views of Dublin: original watercolours by George Petrie, MRIA, 1790-1866'

'Views of Dublin: original watercolours by George Petrie, MRIA, 1790-1866' »

An online exhibition looking at some of the scholarly works undertaken on the Book of Ballymote an iconic and hugely important 14th-century Irish manuscript