Research Day Programme 2022
Tuesday, 4 October 2022, 10:00 – 16:45 IST.
Venue: Academy House
Presentations / Meeting Room
10:00 Welcome: Mary Canning, Royal Irish Academy President
10:20 Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP): John Gibney: ‘The 1921 Treaty exhibition’
Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) is a partnership between the Royal Irish Academy, the National Archives and the Department of Foreign Affairs and publishes archival material on Irish foreign policy since 1919. As part of that partnership DIFP co-curated the National Archives landmark centenary exhibition on the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. How did it come into being? Find out with DIFP Assistant Editor John Gibney.
10:40 Library: Barbara McCormack: ‘Mapping our collections: the OS200 Project’
The Ordnance Survey (OS) was established in 1824 to undertake a townland survey of Ireland and to map the entire country at a scale of six inches to one mile. The RIA Library holds extensive records relating to the OS which includes letters, memoirs, drawings, and sketches. This talk will discuss RIA Library involvement in an exciting new research project led by Queen's University Belfast and the University of Limerick which aims to create a new digital collation of OS records for Ireland.
11:00 Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA): Sarah Gearty: ‘Mapping cities and suburbs: a cartographer’s perspective’
Historical atlases offer ways of presenting and understanding the past. In the urban context, cities continue to offer the map maker a subject that is full of challenges and possibilities. Sarah Gearty discusses her personal experience from the Irish Historic Towns Atlas in considering the cartographic character of our cities and their suburbs.
11:20 Publications (PUBS): Meet the authors; books. Claire O’Connell: ‘Distilling the wisdom of masters’
Dr Claire O’Connell will speak about moderating masterclasses with experts and distilling their wisdom into an upcoming book.
11:40 Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB): Liz Evers and Niav Gallagher: ‘Storytelling through biography: Irish lives in America’
Spanning more than three centuries of American history, Irish lives in America uses the biographies of fifty individuals from the Dictionary of Irish Biography to reflect the rich diversity of those emigrating to America, and to illustrate how the Irish influenced all aspects of life there, whether cultural, political or scientific.
12:00 Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Studies (DMLCS): Anthony Harvey: ‘Digitisation: leveraging the value of the Dictionary’
Thanks to the alphabetical arrangement of their headwords, the entries in a conventional, hard-copy dictionary can readily be browsed. But there is no way methodically to search the information that is packed into those entries. In contrast, historical dictionaries that have been prepared in digital form can be systematically searched, across their entries, for particular definitions, or for specific authors or genres of source-texts, or by geographical provenance of citations, or by etymology, or by other criteria, so as to arrive at an accurate overall picture that could not otherwise be gained. Drawing his examples from the DMLCS dictionary, Dr Anthony Harvey will illustrate how digitising any scholarly dictionary can greatly increase the research-value of its contents in this way.
12:20 Foclóir Stairiúil na Gaeilge (FNG): Charles Dillon: ‘Máirtín Ó Cadhain, lexicographer and writer’
Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1906-1970) was a novelist, essayist and short story writer of great renown, however few are fully aware of his talents as a lexicographer. Academy researchers published in 2021 over half a million words of dictionary text based which Ó Cadhain compiled. Here we examine what this new resource can tell us about Ó Cadhain the writer.
12:40 Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI): Clare Lanigan: ‘The Archiving Reproductive Health project at the Digital Repository of Ireland’
The Archiving Reproductive Health project aims to provide long-term preservation and access to the many at-risk archives generated by grassroots women’s reproductive health movements before and during the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution. Funded by Wellcome Trust and administered by the DRI, the project is publishing and making available digital collections from activist organisations that otherwise would be lost. The preservation of these collections adds significantly to our understanding of women's rights movements and the history of reproductive healthcare in Ireland.
13:00 Grangegorman Histories (GH): Aisling Roche: ‘Uncovering, cataloguing and commemorating the people, places and practices of Grangegorman’
This presentation will introduce Grangegorman Histories and outline the mission, vision and values of this public history project. The project has been operating since 2019 and we will highlight some of the events delivered, the impact of the project to date and the ambitions for the project programme 2022-25.
13:20 Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South (ARINS): John Doyle: ‘Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South: rewards and challenges’
13:35 Break
14:00 DIFP: John Gibney: ‘DIFP: a user’s guide’
Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) is a partnership between the Royal Irish Academy, the National Archives and the Department of Foreign Affairs, and since 1998 has published archival material relating to Irish foreign policy since 1919. Every two years we produce a large volume of documents, with Volume XIII (covering 1965 to 1969) due out in November. How does one go about pulling such a publication together? Find out with DIFP Assistant Editor John Gibney.
14:20 Library: Anita Cooper: ‘Digital collaborations: the eighteenth-century watercolours of Gabriel Beranger’
The Library collaborated with The Watercolour World and the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) to digitally document and preserve selections from our significant antiquarian watercolour collections. The two post-card sized albums deposited contain forty-seven watercolours by the artist Gabriel Beranger from his expeditions around Dublin and a few surrounding counties.
14:40 IHTA: Jennifer Moore: ‘The Topographical Information train of the IHTA: a platform for urban research’
The text section of the IHTA contains tens of thousands of urban micro histories, that, when combined in various ways, can give an accurate snapshot of towns at a particular point in history or for comparative purposes across the thirty atlases published to date. The essay with illustrative text maps offers an understanding of the topographical evolution of each town and with the sources, direct users to further research possibilities.
15:00 DIB: Terry Clavin and Turlough O’Riordan: ‘Curating the DIB: Irish Sporting Lives’
Irish Sporting Lives is the second in a series of themed publications from the RIA, curating the biographies contained within the Dictionary of Irish Biography – in this case a collection of sporting lives from recent centuries. The editors will discuss the lives they selected, new biographies they commissioned from external experts, and their fascinating experiences in locating suitable images and assembling the volume.
15:20 DMLCS: Anthony Harvey: ‘Digitisation: leveraging the value of the Dictionary’
Thanks to the alphabetical arrangement of their headwords, the entries in a conventional, hard-copy dictionary can readily be browsed. But there is no way methodically to search the information that is packed into those entries. In contrast, historical dictionaries that have been prepared in digital form can be systematically searched, across their entries, for particular definitions, or for specific authors or genres of source-texts, or by geographical provenance of citations, or by etymology, or by other criteria, so as to arrive at an accurate overall picture that could not otherwise be gained. Drawing his examples from the DMLCS dictionary, Dr Anthony Harvey will illustrate how digitising any scholarly dictionary can greatly increase the research-value of its contents in this way.
15:40 FNG: Charles Dillon: ‘Máirtín Ó Cadhain, lexicographer and writer’
Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1906-1970) was a novelist, essayist and short story writer of great renown, however few are fully aware of his talents as a lexicographer. Academy researchers published in 2021 over half a million words of dictionary text based which Ó Cadhain compiled. Here we examine what this new resource can tell us about Ó Cadhain the writer.
16:00 DRI: Clare Lanigan: ‘The Archiving Reproductive Health project at the Digital Repository of Ireland’
The Archiving Reproductive Health project aims to provide long-term preservation and access to the many at-risk archives generated by grassroots women’s reproductive health movements before and during the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution. Funded by Wellcome Trust and administered by the DRI, the project is publishing and making available digital collections from activist organisations that otherwise would be lost. The preservation of these collections adds significantly to our understanding of women's rights movements and the history of reproductive healthcare in Ireland
16:20 Publications: Meet the authors; journals. Mary Kelly Quinn: ‘Biodiversity of Ireland’s rivers – time to take stock’
This lecture will look at the tremendous freshwater resources we have in Ireland, their amazing biodiversity and our dependence on them. Importantly, it will highlight the growing and shocking threats to water quality and biodiversity, and the urgent need for greater action to address declines.
16:45 Conclusion
Demonstrations / Council Room, Members Room, Library
10.20
Members Room: DRI, Lisa Griffith: ‘The An Post Museum and Archive Postage Stamp collection in the Digital Repository of Ireland’
Library: FNG, project staff: ‘Using the historical corpus of Irish’
10.40
Members Room: DIB, project staff: ‘Telling Ireland’s story through biography: researching, writing and using the DIB’
Library: DMLCS, project staff: ‘Demonstrating the DMLCS database’
11.00
Members Room: GH, Aisling Roche: ‘Facilitating and accessing sources and resources to explore the histories of Grangegorman’
Library: Library staff: 'Treasures of the RIA Library’
11.20
Members Room: ARINS, Shelley Deane: ‘Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South: rewards and challenges’
11.40
Council Room: DIFP, Micheal Kennedy: ‘“The Doomsday document”: a 10-megaton nuclear attack on Dublin’
Library: Library: ‘Mapping our collections’
12.00
Members Room: PUBS, Ruth Hegarty: ‘An invitation to write for the Academy: how to pitch an article or book for publication’
Library: FNG, project staff: ‘Using the historical corpus of Irish’
12.20
Council Room: IHTA, Frank Cullen: ‘Cork 1842: the GISt of the city’
Library: DMLCS, project staff: ‘Demonstrating the DMLCS database’
14.00
Members Room: DRI, Daniel Bangert: ‘The Digital Repository of Ireland and the National Open Research Forum’
14.20
Members Room: ARINS, Shelley Deane: 'Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South: rewards and challenges’
Library: FNG, project staff: ‘Using the historical corpus of Irish’
14.40
Members Room: PUBS, Ruth Hegarty: ‘Using our educational resources: curriculum-linked lesson plans available to secondary-school teachers’
Library: Library staff: ‘Treasures of the Royal Irish Academy Library’
15.20
Council Room: DIFP, Michael Kennedy: ‘The public and heritage value of DIFP: discovering the Dalkey and Howth “Éire” signs’
Library: Library staff: ‘Watercolours of Gabriel Beranger’
15.40
Council Room: IHTA, Jennifer Moore: ‘50,000 urban histories to your desktop: IHTA Online’
Library: FNG, project staff: ‘Using the historical corpus of Irish’
16.00
Members Room: GH, Aisling Roche: ‘Facilitating and accessing sources and resources to explore the histories of Grangegorman’
Library: DMLCS, project staff: ‘Demonstrating the DMLCS database’
16.20
Members Room: DIB, project staff: ‘Telling Ireland’s story through biography: researching, writing and using the DIB’
RIA publications will be available to purchase on the day