Research Collections: Archives
Copy letter from Seán Lester to Nora Barnacle on the death of James Joyce, 13 January 1941
[IE DCUA C1/9/c1_9_0041]
DCU Archives contains holdings of national and international importance, including papers of noted literary, political, and professional figures, photographic and audiovisual collections, historic manuscripts and records of corporate bodies and associations.
These collections are intended to support research by a wide range of scholars and researchers whose work relies on primary resource materials. See below for a list of collections currently available for consultation and others that will be made available in due course.
Explore our Archival Collections in our Archives Catalogue
Archive Collections
Collection Dates: 1947-2009
Extent: 4 boxes
Beathaisnéis was an Irish-language biographies research project led by Diarmuid Breathnach and Máire Ní Mhurchú. Nine volumes of Beathaisnéis were published by An Clóchomhar between 1986-2007.
The Beathaisnéis collection contains 393 reseach files relating to individuals who had a commiment and connection to the Irish language. The collection includes material such as birth certificates, research notes, articles written about the subjects, and correspondences between Diarmuid and Máire and relatives/friends of the subjects of the biographies. Each biography has a unique ID number and biographies are arranged alphabetically by surname.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: 1916-2006
Extent: 507 boxes
Charles J. Haughey (1925-2006) was a leading Fianna Fáil (FF) politician active over four decades. He was a Teachta Dála (member of the Irish Parliament) in various north Dublin constituencies for 35 unbroken years, in ministerial office for 14, and Taoiseach for seven. Haughey was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1957 and during his career held the ministries of Justice, Agriculture and Fisheries, Finance, Health, Social Welfare, and the Gaeltacht. He was appointed Ireland’s seventh Taoiseach in December 1979, when he also became party leader. In 2008, the Haughey family donated his private papers to Dublin City University.
The Charles J. Haughey Collection comprises over 500 archival boxes including correspondence, writings, speeches, photographs, audio, video, objects and artefacts. The collection is currently being preserved, catalogued, and digitised in DCU Library and will be progressively released for research on a phased basis. The collection can be consulted in the Special Collections and Archives reading room in the O’Reilly Library, Glasnevin Campus, Dublin.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: 1995-2021
Extent: 2 files
Dr. David O'Donoghue is an Irish journalist and historian who has written two books on Irish-German relations during the Second World War. David has worked as a journalist for Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and for Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Paris, France. David was awarded a PhD from Dublin City University in 1995.
This collection includes an audio documentary Hitler's Irish Voices about the Irland-Redaktion radio service, 1939-1945, and an audio interview with creator Dr. David O'Donoghue about the documentary and his PhD thesis 'Hitler's Irish voices: the story of German radio's propaganda service, 1939-1945', (1995), Dublin City University.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: 1782-1950
Extent: 1 album
Henry Morris (1874-1945) was a writer and Irish scholar, born on 14 January 1874 in Lisdoonan, Donaghmoyne, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. Morris was a teacher and school inspector for the Department of Education, collector of 18th and 19th century Irish manuscripts, and involved in the revival of Irish language and antiquarian studies.
Bound volume acquired by St. Patrick's College in the 1990s. Includes correspondence, press-cuttings, autographs, warrants, postcards, invitations, and receipts, collected by Henry Morris.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: 1905-2011
Extent: 4 boxes
Provenance: Colum Kenny donated this collection to DCU Library on behalf of the Kenny family on 23 November 2011.
This collection consists of material relating to the lives and careers of Kevin J Kenny (1881-1954), Michael B Kenny (1919-1992) and Colum J Kenny (born 1951).
The majority of the material relates to Kevin J Kenny who founded Kenny’s Advertising Agency in 1902, one of the first full-service advertising agencies in Ireland. The agency provided placement opportunities in publications for clients, as well as other services, which brought Kenny into contact with many notable historical figures of the day, such as Roger Casement, Patrick Pearse, Arthur Griffith, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and James Creed Meredith. The collection includes letters from these figures as well as other papers providing important insights into major historical events such as the Easter Rising, the Gallipoli Landings, the recruitment controversy of 1915-1918, the War of Independence and Civil War.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: 1979-2015
Extent: 44 boxes
Mary Mulvihill (1959-2015) was an Irish scientist, radio television presenter, author and educator. She founded and served as the first chairperson of Women in Technology and Science (WITS), and is viewed as a pioneer of science communication and heritage in Ireland.
The Mary Mulvihill collection touches upon all the interests, ideas and achievements of Mary Mulvihill from 1979-2015. The majority of its material relates to her published writing and the research that she undertook to complete these works. Mulvihill produced and edited two books about historic Irish women scientists; Lab Coats and Lace (Dublin, 2009) and Stars, Shells and Bluebells (Dublin, 1997), (as its publisher, see WITS series for research material for this book). She also wrote a guide for more sustainable living in Drive like a Woman, Shop like a Man (Dublin, 2009) and the Dublin-focused Ingenious Dublin: a guide to the city's marvels, discoveries and inventions (Dublin, 2012). However, the majority of literary research material is for her seminal work, Ingenious Ireland: A County-by-County Exploration of Irish Mysteries and Marvels, which was originally published in 2002 and again after her death in 2019. It is widely recognised as an outstanding piece of individual research that gave life to the memory of people and places in Ireland associated with scientific, medical and engineering achievements.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: 1935-2003
Extent: 2 boxes and metal case
The Seán Lester Diaries were donated to Dublin City University by Patricia Kilroy and Ann Gorski, daughters of Seán Lester, on behalf of the Lester family in 2008.
This collection consists of the diaries of Irish diplomat Seán Lester (1888-1959), covering his time as High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig [Gdańsk, Poland] from 1935 to 1939, and part of his time as Deputy, and subsequently as Acting Secretary General, of the League in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1940 to 1941.
Seán Lester’s diaries offer a fascinating insight into the rise of the Nazis and the lead-up to and outbreak of the Second World War, while Lester and his colleagues struggled to maintain the existence of the League with, as he noted, “the world falling about our ears”. Fearing the discovery of his diaries by the Nazis, Lester buried them in a metal case beside a bench in the Palais des Nations [the headquarters of the League] in Geneva. This metal case is also included as part of the collection at DCU.
This collection can be accessed in our Archive Catalogue.
Collection Dates: [c1811-1970]
Extent: 600 boxes
The Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland, also known as the Kildare Place Society, due to its location in Dublin, was a voluntary educational agency founded in 1811 before the establishment of the National Board of Education in 1831. It was established with the aim of providing non-denominational education and its pioneering work included the building of schools, a library, teacher training, textbook publishing and the establishment of an inspectorate to monitor schools. When the Irish National School was established in 1831, the Kildare Place Society became the Church Education Society and this group went on to manage the training of teachers for Protestant schools until the Church of Ireland Training College was established in 1884. This organisation eventually became the Church of Ireland College of Education (CICE).
The Kildare Place Society is divided into two categories: text books and educational library books. The textbooks include editions of the Dublin Reading Book and Dublin Spelling Book, which were based on the Lancasterian system of education that was used in its schools and represents the first Irish attempt at an organised reading scheme for children of the poor. The educational library books concern travel narratives, natural history, heritage, poetry, and didactic fiction. The collection also includes administrative records, correspondence, leases, reports, committee dairies, teacher lists and petitions. The Kildare Place Society supported a high standard of printing and illustration within its books and the texts include many examples of woodcut illustrations.