Almost three hundred years after the construction of TCD’s first great library, the new Ussher Library is ready to open. Raymund Ryan finds that Trinity College ‘has balanced the maintenance of its inheritance and progressive architectural patronage with aplomb’
At the heart of most educational institutions, and perhaps even at the heart of built civilisation, is the library. From the famous Bibliotheca Alexandrina at the mouth of the Nile to the havens of learning protected within such medieval monasteries as that at St Gallen, the library continues to be both an actual repository of books and ideal architectural space. At Trinity College Dublin, the Old Library is one of the great artefacts of Anglo-Irish culture; its recent neighbour, the Berkeley, is a consummate example of mid-century Brutalism. Now this elite pair is joined by a third free-standing library — the Ussher — as Trinity reconfigures itself for life in this electronic 21st century
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