Detail from a late-fifteenth-century page of the Annals of Ulster

The

The Library

Research. Reading. Places. Ideas.

A growing collection of reading guides, articles, itineraries and resources to help you explore Ireland’s history, heritage and landscape more deeply.

Some resources are freely available to all. Others are more substantial publications available from the House.

Detail from the Annals of Ulster, late fifteenth century.
Trinity College Dublin, MS 1282, fol. 45v. Public domain.

Library Resource No. 001

Where to Begin with Medieval Ireland

A carefully chosen reading guide to help you explore medieval Ireland, from the early Christian period to the later Middle Ages. It includes key books, accessible introductions and specialist studies, with suggestions for different interests and levels of experience.

Read the Guide
Cover of A Monastic Landscape: The Cistercians in Medieval Ireland by Breda Lynch

A Monastic Landscape

The Cistercians in Medieval Ireland

By Breda Lynch

Poetry & Place

Two encounters with the contemplative and creative worlds of medieval Ireland.

Open folios of the ninth-century Reichenau Primer, with the Old Irish poem Pangur Bán written on the left-hand page
Reichenau Primer, Stift St. Paul Cod. 86b/1, fols. 1v–2r. Unknown maker; public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

An early Irish voice

Pangur Bán

A ninth-century poem in which a scholar compares his patient search for knowledge with his cat’s watchful hunt.

Read the Poem
Weathered medieval carved stone head from the south wall of St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Gowran, County Kilkenny
Carved head, south wall, St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Gowran. Photograph by A.-K. D., CC BY-SA 4.0; cropped. Source.

Poetry & sculpture

Station Island, VIII

Seamus Heaney

Heaney recalls a cast of an abbess associated with the Gowran Master: a fleeting image of grace within a poem of friendship, archaeology and loss.

Read about the Poem