Lecture | Stories, Landscape and Folklore
Early Investigations of Ireland in the Armagh Robinson Library Collections
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
The Library will host a lecture on the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland project (VRTI) on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at 7.30pm: Stories, landscapes and folklore: early investigations of Ireland in Armagh Robinson Library’s collections.
The speakers will be Dr Ciaràn Wallace, Programme Director for the VRTI and Dr Eamon Darcy from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at Maynooth University.
Admission free with booking essential via e-mail admin@armaghrobinsonlibrary.co.uk or phone 028 37523142.
Dr Eamon Darcy led the project, with funding from the Royal Irish Academy’s Nowlan Digitisation Grant scheme.
The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland is an all-island and international research partnership hosted by Trinity College Dublin, working to reconstruct the Public Record Office of Ireland — a magnificent archive destroyed in 1922 at the outset of the Civil War. This is an ever-growing, open-access resource, freely and permanently available online to all those interested in Ireland’s deep history, at home and abroad.
Four manuscripts from the Library’s collections were digitised through the project and have been made freely available online. The digitisation work was carried out by Michael Heath of Digital Scanning Services, Armagh.
These specific items will be discussed in the lecture:
- Walter Harris & the Physico-Historical Society of Ireland
- Itinerary of Journey Through the Counties of Dublin, Meath & Louth
- A Natural History of the Parish of Killasher [Killesher]
- The History and Antiquities of Dublin, by James Ware
Speaking about the project, the Keeper of the Library, the Very Revd Shane Forster, said,
Our Governors and Guardians were delighted to give permission for the relevant manuscripts in Armagh Robinson Library to be included in this project. Funded by the Royal Irish Academy, we believe that this has been a successful collaboration between Armagh Robinson Library, Maynooth University, the Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College Dublin, and the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland and allows many more people, through this project, to have access to and engage with some of the treasures held within our collection.
To see all the works from Armagh Robinson Library listed in the VRTI, visit