Reference Library and Archive

#OpentheArchives at the National Print Museum

In collaboration with students studying heritage and public history, the Museum seeks to highlight items from its lesser-known archive. Students carefully select and research a number of items; discover their findings below!

Irish Leisure through the Decades

‘What can the archive tell us about everyday life? This was the question I hoped to answer as I began to delve into the National Print Museum’s collections. At first, the items that caught my attention seemed to be a random mix, but more research prompted me to choose an overarching topic of leisure time. From a picture of a tug-of-war team to an advertisement for a new computer lab, the six items chosen all tell something about how Irish people spent their time off. In selecting these, I wanted to cover a range of decades across the twentieth century. Some items have more in common with others, including themes like sports, dancing, fundraising, and the arts. In different ways, they all reveal something about Irish social and cultural life, some perhaps more unexpected than others!’

– Margaret Aimar, MPhil, Public History & Cultural Heritage, Trinity College Dublin, Spring 2024

A Newsprint Lense on Irish History

‘Being onsite at the National Print Museum for the last month has been such an incredible experience. While the museum had a fair idea about what was in their archive, combing through it and picking out what interested me, and being the first to research those pieces has been simply amazing. As a history student I chose to focus on the stories of the events and people in these pieces. In a living and working museum such as the National Print Museum, having an onsite archive filled with important newspapers and documents from the past is so important, and adds to the heritage of the museum which you can see and touch, just like the printing machines themselves!’

– Katie Breen, MA, Public History, University College Dublin, Spring 2022