Jeremy Ulick Browne, the 11th Marquess of Sligo, recently transferred to the National Library the 400-year-old collection of family papers which numbered over 20,000 documents. Here the writer, Anne Chambers, some of whose novels are based on the papers, tells the story of this most unusual West of Ireland family and the documents that recorded their life in Westport since Elizabethan times
Some twenty years ago, in one of the attic rooms of Westport House, I watched as the owner, Jeremy Altamont, forced open the rusty lock of a large, iron box, the key of which was long lost. With a final heave, the lock snapped. Inside was a treasure-trove of 16th- and early 17th-century manuscripts. I recall gingerly extracting a faded, brittle relic from the box which, in all possibility, had not been seen since its 16th-century author first put quill to parchment. Until that very moment it had lain there unopened for over 400 years
The National Library of Ireland recently acquired an album of thirty-six watercolours and prints made by James Cavanah Murphy in Portugal between 1789 and 1790. Michael McCarthy recalls the career and travels of this unusual draughtsman
The Smurfit Art Collection spans three continents and contains some of the best 20th-century Irish art. Ciaran MacGonical reviews a new catalogue of the collection