“‘A terrible beauty is born’: The Easter Rising at 100”
Special Collections Gallery
University of Delaware Library
181 S. College Avenue
Newark, DE
This exhibition, on view February 8 through June 12, 2016, commemorates the anniversary of a brief insurrection mounted by a small band of republicans over Easter Week 1916 that was quickly and violently quashed by the British. The uprising became a defining moment for the complex landscape of Irish culture, politics, and history in the twentieth century. The exhibition examines events and attitudes before and after the events of Easter Week 1916, including the Celtic Gaelic Revival period, the rise of Irish Nationalism, the War of Independence and the Civil War, as well as Irish literature produced in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland during The Troubles in the latter half of the twentieth century. Literary texts—with the rare first edition of Yeats's Easter, 1916 as the iconic centerpiece—are shown alongside political broadsides, manuscripts, letters, periodicals, and graphics, indicating the rich history of Irish print culture and the deep resources of the University of Delaware Library. Nineteenth century materials figure prominently in the exhibition, which includes items relating to the Irish Famine and the Land League, along with works by, or relating to, such figures as Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Lady Gregory, George Moore, Charles Stewart Parnell, Dora Sigerson Shorter, Katharine Tynan, and multiple members of the Yeats family.
The exhibition is curated by Maureen Cech, senior assistant librarian in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the University of Delaware Library. An online version of the exhibition will be available at http://exhibits.lib.udel.edu/exhibits/show/easter1916.
On Tuesday, March 15, 2016 the University of Delaware Library Associates will sponsor the 2016 Faculty Lecture, “20th-Century Ireland: A Family Odyssey” by Anne M. Moylan, Professor of History. This event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Morris Library. Please RSVP to UDLA@udel.edu or call library administration at 302-831-2231.