All-Ireland Samba Shamrock Rovers All-Ireland XI 3 – 4 Brazil Lansdowne Road, Tuesday 3 July 1973

In the summer of 1972 the Republic of Ireland soccer team was invited to play in a friendly tournament in Brazil to celebrate the 150th anniversary of that country’s independence. The Republic had been on a terrible run, which had reached its nadir the previous year with a 6–0 thrashing by Austria on Sunday 10 … Read more

The Pearse Papers rediscovered

Patrick Pearse remains one of the most contested and most elusive figures of the revolutionary period, yet the Pearse Papers (MS 21,046–MS 21,097) contain a wealth of biographical information on all aspects of the Pearse family’s various political, business and artistic endeavours. Some of the most affecting manuscripts in this collection include handwritten drafts with … Read more

Old, inadequate catalogues

Many of the National Library’s most valuable collections pertaining to the Irish struggle for independence were catalogued in the 1930s and ’40s, when the institution’s expertise and resources were at a premium. As a consequence (as many readers may have discovered), the catalogue descriptions of some material pertaining to seminal revolutionaries, including Patrick Pearse, Bulmer … Read more