LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES UPDATE

This not writing for two years lark does seem to have become a habit. It could be argued that this has been due to the committee restraining itself until this Autumn edition to unleash torrents of material celebrating the fact that we are 10 years old … however, it is probably more due to the fact that rather a lot of steam needs to build up before sufficient momentum can be generated to consider the possibility of beginning to think about sitting down and starting to scribe an article, often by which time the newsletter has in fact sped past at electronically enhanced desk-top-publishingly fast speeds … such are the slow meandering ambulations of archival pottering. In any case, lots to report since April 2002 when I last wrote. Firstly the Archives et al. committee (and by et al., I mean Information Technology and Education … so you can see why I abbreviated it … ironically … eh, yes) continues to work away in the cathedral background, or more appropriately, underground wherein they lie, despite the recent paucity of Newsletter contributions. There have been a number of changes in personnel: the chancellor, Canon Marshall retired, as did the treasurer, Canon Bertram during the summer of 2002 and were replaced respectively by Canon Kearon and Canon Harmon on the chapter. The Archives committee however had sort of assumed that this meant an automatic succession of dignitaries, leading to a slightly awkward moment, when Canon Kearon and Professor Croke were appointed to replace them on the Archives committee, with Canon Harman putting in a special ghost cameo appearance in the apologies of one meeting. Such is the mirth of the minutiae of minutes. Another change, but not in personnel, was the recognition by the Board in May this year of all that Sue Hemmens has done for music librarianship at the cathedral; she was granted the title 'Honorary Keeper of the Music'. While she continues to act as music librarian, she is ably assisted by Dan Apalaghie, a member of the choir. As this is the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Archives committee, those interested can also find a 'Who's who' article elsewhere in the Newsletter outlining all those who have been involved over the past decade.

Archives
The essence of archival work on the committee can be boiled down to compiling lists, and lists of lists. Whether of manuscripts, books, newspapers, photographs, portraits, monuments or even medieval stones, a simple catalogue is the only way of keeping track of collections, and the only guideline against which to check for gaps or missing items. These can be repaired variously either by research, purchase or even conservation work. Much sorting and listing has been done since the honorary secretary returned from England almost exactly a year ago, and it has been a pleasure to unpack material stored, in many cases some years ago, from a chaos of often unlabelled boxes into some sort of shelved order. Appropriately, as I write, sixteen years worth of backnumbers of the Friends Newsletters lie in chronological order behind me.

A very practical example of a 'listing' of this sort is the catalogue of the medieval stone work created by Dr Rachel Moss and Sue Hemmens. The rather dramatic news of the theft and subsequent recovery of some stone from the cathedral's medieval collection, currently stored in the basement of the neighbouring civic offices, proved the value of such lists. The Garda were brought in to investigate the sale of some medieval stone, and very quickly realised through the identification by Dr Rachel Moss, that the material came from the cathedral collection. Discussions are currently taking place as to where the stones' final storage place will be, one of the suggestions being the cathedral vaults. While on the subject of the vaults, it is also hoped to take some samples from the roof timbers above the vaults for dendrochronological analysis. This dating technique is carried out in the Palaeoecological Centre in Queen's University, Belfast, and compares the growth rings in the wood with a database of similar material, such that the if bark survives, the point at which the tree was felled can be pinpointed to the exact year.

In terms of conservation work, we have been fortunate enough to receive a grant from the Heritage Council for work on the first chapter act book, an edition of which was published by Raymond Gillespie in 1997. The monuments too have been listed definitively and are slowly being assessed for their conservation needs. Since the restoration of the Thomas Prior monument, Jason Ellis has admirably restored two further monuments in the crypt: that to John Bowes (1767) (for which see Jason Ellis, 'The Lord Chancellor Bowes monument: recent cleaning and restoration works' in Irish Professional Conservators' and Restorers' Association (IPCRA) Journal (Spring 2003), pp 17-18) and the Ellis monument (1791) which commemorates former dean and bishop of Kildare, the Right Reverend Welbore Ellis (d.1833), his wife, Diana (d.1865) and their family. The former director of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Dr Anthony Malcomson, author of the recent biography on Archbishop Agar which also researched the Ellis family in great detail, will be delighted to know that, following some damage to Mrs Ellis during the restoration of the crypt, the repair work on her nose was a complete cosmetic success. The conservation and cleaning work was generously funded through the offices of Matheson, Ormsby & Prentice.

It is hoped to fund work on a number of other monuments including a batch of surgical monuments: Renny (1848) (although it has proved impossible to locate an image of the missing crest stolen within the last decade) and Mathias (1849) both in the north aisle of the crypt and also Hamilton (1875) in the south transept. The Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland has kindly agreed to pay for this work, through the work of committee member and RCSI geneticist, Professor David Croke. Another sadly neglected monument is the floor slab to the Revd Robert Shenton (1798), former dean's vicar, the same as mentioned in the last archives update as having been thrown in the canal by a mob in early 1798. Although he sustained no injuries, he died suddenly in June of that year, and one cannot help wondering if the two events were not unrelated. The incription is illegible due to the surface having been used in the past to mix concrete, and to my knowledge is also unrecorded. We are most grateful to both the administrator, Mark Bowyer, and the Friends of the cathedral for agreeing to defray the cost of restoring it. The Friends have also agreed to contribute to preliminary investigations as to how best to conserve the Agard-Harrington monument (1584), a relatively small-scale wall memorial which has survived remarkably intact for this period. Under hoarding since earlier this year when repointing work and the stained glass preservation began in the south transept, it will be accessible once again by October, when it is hoped that it will be possible to have pigment analysis carried out. While on the subject of monuments, the committee is also hoping to oversee the installation of signage appropriate to the monuments. This is being undertaken by Mark Bowyer and the designer, Kevin Sexton.

In considering another cathedral collection, in this case its portraits, a conservation policy document has been drawn up outlining guidelines for the hanging of portraits and treatment of pictures, not all of which have been implemented yet. However, a by-product of this consideration led to the realisation that a number of episcopal portraits lay unhung in the See house, and these have now been hung by Tony McGuinness Fine Art Installation throughout the chapter house. They include a radiant portrait by Andrew Festing of Archbishop McAdoo, golden against the wall's deep red, and in the position formerly occupied by Archbishop William King (which was some time ago moved to King's former residence, the St Patrick's deanery). Beside it, above the chapter house hall entrance, a portrait of Archbishop Magee (or possibly Archbishop Fowler) which had been in the archives for some time, has been rehung in its original position. Archbishop Buchanan's portrait now hangs outside the chapter room and inside, a rather gaunt portrait of Archbishop Barton has displaced a wonderfully framed picture of Archdeacon Torrens (a nineteenth-century predecessor of Canon Kennerley at Narraghmore) who now faces east back to back with Buchanan.

Information Technology
Although technical innovations in the cathedral tend to be introduced in the cathedral office or music department, it is the archives committee which currently take responsibility for the direction in which cathedral I.T. moves. A sub-group consisting of Sue Hemmens, Richard Griffiths and myself have however been asked to put our heads together about the future of I.T. in the cathedral. This involves giving further consideration to how best the cathedral network might be improved, for example, by providing for greater centralisation of information, by increased use of groupware to coordinate diaries and contacts and perhaps also, by increasing the degree of automation and integration with the cathedral website. As editor of the cathedral email bulletin, I am all in favour of automation having produced it for a number of years now, with considerable aid last year from Sheila Kulkarni during her time as public relations officer. The future of PR at the cathedral is also being examined at the moment, with 'Wordsmith' himself, Graham Smith working on a temporary basis. A further innovation should not go unmentioned, and that is the integration of the cathedral photocopier with the network enabling, astoundingly, the preparation of stapled booklets from the click of one button. Does anyone remember hand cranking the old Gestetners?!

Education
With so many resources and experts at the disposal of the cathedral, it is unsurprising that the one of the areas of expansion in the next few years will be education. In terms of exhibitions, the cathedral has already been well represented in 2002, when committee member, Dr Raymond Refaussé and Dr Susan Hood organised a successful exhibition on the three Dublin cathedrals in the civic museum. This summer coming in 2004, the Treasury committee, who curate the current exhibition in the crypt, hope to bring together a remarkably important exhibition: a collection of Irish medieval liturgical manuscripts, including the exquisite 'Christ Church Psalter' held in the Bodleian library in Oxford. It is hoped that this may coincide with the first meeting of the Cathedral Libraries and Archives Association in Dublin, and a number of seminars will be held in connection with them. The archives committee themselves organise a number of lecture series a year, including the provision of lecturers for the Joe Coady memorial talk and the National Heritage Week festivities (for which see the article in this issue on lectures at the cathedral and thoughts for the future). There are also guided tours of the cathedral, given by head verger, Kieran O'Reilly, for tourists and school visitors alike, complete with worksheets for primary level. At present another level of education is being considered by Aonghus Dwane, who with a sub-committee of the archives committee is exploring the possibilities of Adult Education at the cathedral. This initially arose from a visit in April by Dr Kenneth Milne to a conference in Leicester on cathedrals as partners in adult education, a joint initiative of the Church of England Archbishops' Council and General Synod Board of Education and with the British National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

It would be remiss not to mention some of the new publications on sale in the cathedral shop. Joanna Wren, Floor tiles: a guide to the medieval and 19th century floor tiles of Christ Church cathedral Dublin is one, and the other is Stuart Kinsella, Visitor's guide: Christ Church cathedral Dublin both published this year by Christ Church Cathedral Publications. For those not prepared to splash out, visitors will be pleased to know that the complementary leaflet handed out to tourists has also been revised. The English version, published in January, will soon be supplemented by a thirteen other languages: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish, which will all hopefully be in place for the next tourist rush. Also soon to be published by Columba Press is the collection of lectures given as part of the 2000 Years of Christianity lecture series, which will be edited by former precentor, the Revd Professor John Bartlett. For further details of cathedral publications, see the article on the cathedral lectures. One publication avidly awaited is Dr Barra Boydell's new book, intended for publication in 2004, A history of music at Christ Church cathedral Dublin, published by Boydell and Brewer. However, I'm sure Barra is tired of having to add the set piece to conversations - 'no relation!'.

… and finally
The day to day workings of the archives often reveal fascinating connections or nuggets of information that, were they not to be recorded by the archives, would disappear uncaptured for posterity. One of my favourite stories recently was that of a certain descendent of Dean James Margetson (Dean 1639-60, Archbishop of Dublin 1661-3, and then Armagh 1663-78) who I was unfortunately unable to assist in her desire to have the Margetson family crest tattooed onto her arm. Another real mystery solved was related to a modern architectural elevation of the cathedral from the east which had featured in a Girls' Choir poster for a concert in St Kevin's church, Glendalough on 12 December 1998, which turned out to be by a retired geography teacher from Birmingham, named Bernard Platt, who has done numerous other 'orthographic projections' on, for example, the church of St Peter and St Paul, Athlone; Birr parish church, Co. Offaly; the Broadstone station in Dublin; the prison governor's house in Nenagh, and St Peter's church in Drogheda.

After such a multi-paragraphed meal of archives, it is only proper to round off this account with sweet delicacies to finish, and quite a collection of curiosities have been collected. First, a sample of some of the printed material either purchased or donated. This includes: Kenneth Milne, 'The Church of Ireland since Partition' in B. Bradshaw & D. Keogh (eds), Christianity in Ireland: revisiting the story (Dublin: Columba Press, 2002). Also Jeremy Dibble, Charles Villiers Stanford: man and musician (Oxford: OUP, 2002), donated by Mark Bowyer at the time of its launch in the crypt, just outside the archives' door. Membership of the Society of Musicology in Ireland granted us Patrick F. Devine & Harry White (eds.), Irish musical studies: the Maynooth international musicological conference 1995 (2 vols, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996) and we also received the recent publication of Board member, Leslie Whiteside, The stained glass of St Patrick's cathedral Dublin (Dublin, 2003). More unusual was Rupert Ridgewell, Concert programmes in the UK & Ireland: a preliminary report (London, IAML [International Association of Music Libraries] UK & Irl & the Music Libraries Trust, 2003) which we purchased to complement the considerable collection of ephemera in the cathedral collection, and other acquisitions included T.W.E. Drury, Some hymns by Irish church writers with biographical notes (Dublin: A.P.C.K., 1932) from Mark Gardner, and Mary Finn, Out & About in Dublin (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 2000) which features more plugs of the cathedral website than possibly any other publication! Ian Broad & Bride Rosney, Medieval Dublin: two historic walks (Dublin: O'Brien Press, 1982) is a difficult enough book to come across and even more difficult to resist when browsing through Kenny's bookshop in Galway, as the writer was recently. Two copies of Early Music (May 2000) including articles by Ann Buckley, Patrick V. Brannon and in particular Barra Boydell, ''Now that the Lord had readvanc'd the crown': Richard Hosier, Durham Ms. B.1 and the early Restoration anthem repertory at the Dublin cathedrals', pp 238-51, were also purchased, as well as Yvonne Whelan, Reinventing modern Dublin: streetscape, iconography and the politics of identity (Dublin: U.C.D., 2003) which lists the most incredible post-civil war Ireland plans for building in the 1920s, including a national basilica. The Irish Architectural and decorative studies: the journal of the Irish Georgian Society, v (2002) includes an article by Patricia McCabe, 'Trappings of sovereignty: the accoutrements of the Lords Chancellor of Ireland', pp 48-73 featuring a photograph of the Bowes monument, and on an unusual note, Eamon Chandler, 'The boy who was crowned King in Christchurch cathedral' in Ireland's Own (Autumn, 1992), pp. 36-7 was a slightly unexpected discovery passed on by Kieran O'Reilly.

Recent archival additions include two copy books (c.January-March 1970) from the Grammar school found under floor of the music room by Tony Ennis while fixing floor boards. Robert McIntyre, if you are reading this … that's where they went! One wonderful piece of correspondence was a letter received from the dean from well known writer, Republican and Dubliner, Eamonn MacThomáis who, writing on 16 July 2000 (just two years before his death), described '… in the words of the Dub. The crypt is only brillo, cool, magic, super. Congrats on your Deanship and your new crypt which is a joy and a pleasure to behold …'. Other acquisitions were five boxes of music, affectionately known as 'limbo' from Sue Hemmens, and a collection of eleven chorister medals from Kieran O'Reilly, including Winstanley medals, those to head choristers including the girls, and several medals in memoriam of W.R. Browne, W.W. Dungan, E.H. Lewis-Crosby and W.C. Green. A slightly more unusual gift was from Dr J. Ken Roberts, who sent a video entitled the Fortress of St. Cybi concerning the church of St Cybi in Angelsea which Dublin citizens raided in c.1404 and brought back the shrine of St Cubius to the cathedral. Another volume proudly added to the collection is a thesis which gained a first for its author, choir member, Fiona Cullen, 'A study of developments in the repertoire of Christ Church cathedral choir between 1970 and c.1990' (B.Mus. Ed., D.I.T. Conservatory of Music & Drama, 2003). Last but by no means least (indeed quite the contrary), it is a pleasure to acknowledge the incredible liturgical and theological collection of books donated by Dean Gilbert Mayes. There are over 700 volumes in the collection, including numerous items of Church of Ireland, Irish history and biographical interest, some of which Kenneth Milne and I first collected from his home in Rathmichael on 6 March 1994 and then again two years later. The entire collection was added to the cathedral archives following a trip on Thursday 14 August this year. The collection includes a number of early prayer books and psalters, with unusual examples such as 'Graduel de Paris' (1846), a Book of Common Prayer (1742) and several seventeeth century tracts, the earliest of which is dated 1625. A considerable number of books from the Alcuin society are also present, as well as a number of Dean Mayes's sermons, and a draft copy of the Alternative Book of Prayer 1984. We are extraordinarily grateful to the dean for this gift and hope to make a more formal acknowledgement of his warm generosity in the near future.

Stuart Kinsella
8 September 2003