This week is the national
'Explore Archives' week. Archives services and repositories all over the country will be delving into their collections and sharing some new stories and rare items from their collections.
All this week the Archives of the Hardiman Library will share some highlights and seldom seen items from our collections. Our archives range in date from the late 15th century to present day and cover a wide range of topics from the development of Galway city, the culture, landscape, language and music of Connemara and the West, great Irish writers, theatres and actors, as well as more modern records stemming from the years of conflict in Northern Ireland.
For this first post we go back to where we started. Queen's College Galway, as we then were known, was founded in 1845 and opened its doors to a first cohort of students soon after. Our first Librarian was James Hardiman, historian and book collector and our University Library still bears his name today. The University Quadrangle is a proud link to this early University heritage and you can look back at a recent programme of
Building Ireland (available on the RTÉ Player) where the architectural history and original plans of the Quadrangle are featured.
Here are a selection of images exploring our University history and we will share more posts exploring our wider archives throughout this week. Stay tuned for more stories from the Archives!
 |
| James Hardiman |
 |
| Original plans of QCG Quadrangle |
 |
| Cover of first Roll Book, QCG |
 |
| Original QCG Library, late 19th Century |
Comments