Changed Utterly – Ireland and the Easter Rising
Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has published a new blog Changed Utterly – Ireland and the Easter Rising which compiles a selection of rare photographs and letters documenting the some of the most extraordinary and at times utterly ordinary moments leading up to and during the Easter 1916 Rising.
TCD University will explore the Library of Trinity College Dublin’s research collections relating to the 1916 Easter Rising, through a regular series of blog posts. Each blogpost will focus on one extraordinary item or collection each week such as diaries, letters, photographs and items of clothing.
The title of the blog is inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem Easter 1916, the full quote being All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. The poem first appeared in September 1916 privately printed in an edition of 25 copies. 2015 also marks the 150 anniversary of the birth of W.B. Yeats.
Blog posts are written mostly by Library staff, with contributions from Trinity College academics and other experts in the period. Each blog post will contain further links to entries in Trinity College Library catalogues, and to digitised items on TCD Digital Collections, as applicable.
The blog showcases as yet unpublished records written by ordinary people, from dramatic as–it–happened accounts to carefully amassed scrapbooks.
This week’s blogpost, The Ruins of Dublin 1916, focuses on a collection of photographs taken by Thomas Johnson Westropp (1860–1922), a Limerick–born scholar and graduate of TCD.
The images were taken in the days and weeks following the Rising and show the damage inflicted on the architectural fabric of central Dublin, including the GPO, Liberty Hall, the Four Courts and Clerys.
Previous blog posts have included pictures of the gun-running journey made by the Asgard, the yacht belonging to Robert Erskine Childers and his wife Molly which carried he arms used in the Rising from Hamburg to Howth.
If you have any comments, or are inspired to conduct your own research, please contact TCD here.