MARSH’S
LIBRARY - DUBLIN
Three Centuries of Literary Research
Dublin has been named by UNESCO as the City of Literature for 2011. Famed for its numerous noted writers of the canon of English letters, Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Sean O’Casey, and Bram Stoker, among a roster of others. Literary pub crawls wander the city in the dusk of evening, discovering the tippling spots of liquid inspiration. But much of the responsibility for Dublin’s literary heritage can be placed at the doorstep of a bachelor clergyman, the Archbishop Narcissus Marsh.
Marsh’s Library behind a Gothic arched iron gate on St Patrick’s Close, just around the corner from the great cathedral, founded in 1701 and celebrating its 310th birthday, was the first public library in Dublin. The library’s interior, beyond the doorway listing the succession of librarians, with its beautiful rows of tall dark oaken bookcases, remains virtually unchanged since it was built three centuries ago, remaining an extraordinary example of a 17th century scholars' library.
The idea for a public library came to Marsh while he was provost at Trinity College, seeing how difficult it was to gain access to use the library there (see Trinity Old Library and Book of Kells). Marsh provided his own personal collection of books and purchased the 10,000 volume collection of Edward Stillingfleet, the Bishop of Worcester for £2,500 in 1705. The library’s first administrator Dr. Elias Bouhéreau, a French Hugenot, also added his own books of religious controversies and the study of Calvanism in France to the collection. The library now houses over 25,000 books of the 16th to 18th centuries, covering the broad fields of medicine, science, law, mathematics, travel & navigation, music, surveying and classical literature.
Public access to a great library allowed many of the future literary lights of Dublin to spend hours among its treasures, locked in the cages where the rare works would be delivered, with entrance and perusal based on a signiture. The hand scrawls of the likes of Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker and James Joyce can be found in the ledger. Bram Stoker began writing his first drafts of Dracula among the high stacked shelves of Marsh’s Library (see Whitby Abbey). Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, still remains at the library, in spirit at least, the Swift Case displays printed works of the satirical fantasist and his plaster death mask.
There are four main collections in Marsh’s Library, of 80 books printed before 1501 called the Incunabula, books from Italy before 1600, 1,200 books printed in England before 1640 and 5,000 tomes printed in England before 1700. There is a large amount of liturgical and theology works, books of hours and historic bibles printed in almost every language. A separate room is reserved for books and periodicals covering Irish history over the last hundred years.
Exhibitions at Marsh’s Library change from time to time, currently on display are medical works in a theme called 'Hippocrates Revived', featuring early books on medicine, or what passed for it, elaborately illustrated with woodcuts and engravings. The exhibition includes the ancient Greek medical theories of Hippocrates and Galen, an account of the first human blood transfusion in 1887 by by Jean Baptiste Denis, physician to Louis XIV, and the controverial book by Johannes Wier which caused an uproar in 1563 by having the temarity to suggest that the confessions of witches were delusions.
Visiting Marsh’s Library
The library’s public normal opening hours are Monday and Wednesday to Friday, 9.30am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm; and Saturday 10am to 1pm. It is closed on Tuesday and Sunday. Admission to the library is €3 for adults, €2 for students and seniors and children are free. The founder of the library Narcissus Marsh is buried next door in the graveyard of St Patrick’s Cathedral. And for the literary pub crawlers, there is no bar at the library. © Bargain Travel Europe
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SEE ALSO:
ARMAGH PUBLIC LIBRARY & VICAR’S HILL No 5