Afternoon Closure Library 13 August 2025
2025-08-13 13:00 - 16:00 (Europe/London)
The Library will be closed this afternoon, Wednesday 13 August 2025, for an Afternoon on the Hill group visit.

Afternoon Closure Library 14 August 2025
2025-08-14 13:00 - 16:00
The Library will be closed this afternoon, Thursday 14 August 2025, for preparation of the Long Room for an event.

Afternoon Closure Library 15 August 2025
2025-08-15 13:00 - 16:00
The Library will be closed this afternoon, Friday 15 August 2025, to casual visitors for a Charles Wood Summer School lecture by Fiona M. Palmer: ‘My beat is said to be too square…’.

Charles Wood Summer School Lecture
2025-08-15 13:00 - 16:00
The Library will host a Charles Wood Summer School lecture by Fiona M. Palmer: ‘My beat is said to be too square…’.

Professor Fiona M. Palmer, a distinguished musicologist and performer, based at Maynooth University, shines a spotlight on 3 choral conductors who coloured Charles Wood’s student years: Joseph Barnby, Arthur Sullivan and Charles V. Stanford. Expect some eye-opening tidbits in the historic setting of Armagh Robinson Library.

August Bank Holiday Closure
2025-08-25 13:00 - 16:00
The Library will be closed Monday 25 August for the August Bank Holiday.

Morning Closure Library 27 August 2025
2025-08-27 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Wednesday 27 August 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

Morning Closure Library 4 September 2025
2025-09-04 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 4 September 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

Morning Closure Library 9 September 2025
2025-09-09 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Tuesday 9 September 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

Morning Closure Library 11 September 2025
2025-09-11 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 11 September 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

European Heritage Open Days 2025
2025-09-13 11:00 - 2025-09-14 17:00
The Library and No 5 will both be open during European Heritage Open Days 2025.

On Saturday 13 September, from 11 am to 5 pm, and on Sunday 14 September, from 2 pm to 5 pm.

Download the brochure for more info on EHOD

Morning Closure Library 15 September 2025
2025-09-15 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Monday 15 September 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

Morning Closure Library 17 September 2025
2025-09-17 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Wednesday 17 September 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

Morning Closure Library 18 September 2025
2025-09-18 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 18 September 2025, for a Morning on the Hill group visit.

Morning Closure Library 23 September 2025
2025-09-23 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Tuesday 23 September 2025, due to a group visit.

Morning Closure Library 25 September 2025
2025-09-25 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 25 September 2025, due to the quarterly Governors and Guardians meeting taking place in the Long Room.

Book launch | The Unbroken Covenant: Could Ulster Unionists have controlled a nine-county Northern Ireland?
2025-09-25 19:00 - 20:30
Book launch by Dr Samuel Beckton, a historian from Belfast, of his new book, The Unbroken Covenant: Could Ulster Unionists have controlled a nine-county Northern Ireland?, that commemorates the centenary of the 1925 Irish Boundary Commission.

During discussions for the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Northern Ireland as we know it was created. But there were discussions of the Irish boundary line, including partitioning the full province of Ulster.

This raises a fundamental ‘what if’ within Irish Studies, could Ulster Unionists have controlled nine-county Northern Ireland? This a counterfactual history to mark the centenary of the 1925 Irish Boundary Commission, as a reflection of the impact of partition, and subsequent questions of what the knock-on impact would have been. In particular, how would this altered timeline have affected the border counties? Could Ulster Unionists have controlled Monaghan County Council? Would Border County Unionists have been able to return representatives to Stormont? How would a nine-county Northern Ireland have influenced the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II?

These questions, and much more, will be answered in this work as it looks at how history could have taken a different turn.

Quote from The Unbroken Covenant, by Dr Samuel Beckton

The book will be on sale at a special price of £25.00.

Morning Closure Library 1 October 2025
2025-10-01 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Wednesday 1 October 2025, due to a private event.

National Poetry Day 2025
2025-10-02 19:30 - 21:30
The City Chapter’s National Poetry Day 2025 event with poets Wendy Sinnamon and Paul Jeffcutt will be held at Armagh Robinson Library on Thursday 2 October 2025 at 7.30pm.

Prior booking is requested by contacting Armagh Robinson Library on telephone 028 37523142 or by e-mail admin@armaghrobinsonlibrary.co.uk

Admission to the event is free, with donations to the City Chapter most welcome.

Wendy Sinnamon is a poet, writer, facilitator and special educational needs teaching assistant from Portadown.

She obtained a BA Honours in Creative Writing and English Literature in 2022 and recently she achieved a Masters with Distinction in English Literature.

Wendy is a recipient of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Support for Individual Artists Programme and has received several bursaries from The Irish Writers Centre and The John Hewitt Society.

Her debut fiction manuscript was shortlisted for the 2022 Penguin Random House WriteNow competition. She was shortlisted for the 2023 and the 2024 Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing.

Her poetry has been published in Abridged, The Honest Ulsterman, The Waxed Lemon and Poetry Bus and several of works were also included in the Fusion anthology published earlier this year by Broken Spine Press.

My poetry often blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, the past and the present. I seek to explore the complex relationship between identity and memory, what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. I dive into history, personal and shared, ancient and recent, to uncover truths, if any, about the connections we develop with each other and the wider world and how these coalesce and become the self, whatever that means.

Paul Jeffcutt is a writer from Banbridge. He has won thirty-three awards for poetry in competitions in Ireland, the UK and the USA. He has three full collections of poetry: ‘True’, Black Spring Press (2025), ‘The Skylark’s Call’, Dempsey & Windle (2020) and ‘Latch’, Lagan Press (2010). He is widely published in literary journals and anthologies.

Paul will launch his third collection of poetry, ‘True’, published by Black Spring Press at the event. It will be on sale at the special price of £10 during this event.

The poems were all inspired by true stories from real lives. The sources were news reports, exhibitions, diaries, brochures, sagas, public notices, journals, broadcasts, obituaries and word of mouth. They are not ‘found poems’ – instead, each real-life story provided the launch pad for new work. Ciaran Carson called them ‘discovered poems’. ‘True’ brings together my discovered poems, twelve of which have won awards. The book is dedicated to the late Ciaran Carson, founding Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast.

– Paul Jeffcutt

Paul Jeffcutt’s poetry has always been tempted by the coincidental and the accidental, finding strange wonders in juxtaposition and enigma. With ‘True’, this risk-taking reaches a new stage of fluency, insight and daring. Along the pathways of these literally ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ poems, the big themes are explored, in the company of other artists, pioneers, adventurers and plain folk like ourselves. A joy to read.

– Damian Smyth, Head of Literature and Drama at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Morning Closure Library 9 October 2025
2025-10-09 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 9 October 2025, due to a group visit.

An Art Exhibition with a Difference: Icons on Ammo Boxes
2025-10-09 10:00 - 2025-10-24 16:00
The Library is pleased to be the first venue in Northern Ireland to host a special exhibition, Icons on Ammo Boxes, with art works by Ukrainian artists Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko. The artworks are painted on the bases of empty ammunition boxes from Ukraine.

The exhibition will run from Thursday 9 October to Friday 24 October, following the Library’s normal opening hours.

The artists Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko (Kyiv, Ukraine) chose to combine two contrasting objects in their artwork: ammunition boxes and religious icons. Their aim is to transform death, linking with the ammunition box, into life, shown in Ukrainian life by an icon. The artists believe that the icons, painted on boxes brought from the war zone, are silent yet eloquent witnesses of the war. The boxes also play another important role: the artwork is for sale, with proceeds going to buy ambulances and evacuation vehicles on the front line in Ukraine.

The exhibition has been on display in a wide range of venues throughout Europe, and most recently in Scotland. Armagh Robinson Library has had the pleasure of working with Ukrainian families who are living in County Armagh and the Library wants to continue this valued link with them. We will hold a special open night on Thursday 9 October 2025 from 7.30pm in the Library. The exhibition will run until Friday 24 October, following the Library’s normal opening hours.

Speaking ahead of the open night, one of the Ukrainian mothers, Inna Shynkevich said,

This exhibition is very special to us because it shows how even in the darkest times, life and hope can be born out of destruction. We are honoured to bring it to Northern Ireland for the first time, and I sincerely hope that more venues across the region will open their doors so that as many people as possible can see these powerful works.

The Keeper of the Library, the Very Revd Shane Forster, added,

We are deeply humbled to receive and have the opportunity to display these beautiful Ukrainian icons. They tell a story of a war-torn land, of death, destruction and despair, but also of hope, faith and light in the midst of the darkest of times.

Morning Closure Library 16 October 2025
2025-10-16 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 16 October 2025, for a Morning on the Hill school visit.

Morning Closure Library 22 October 2025
2025-10-22 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Wednesday 22 October 2025, due to a private event.

Morning Closure Library 23 October 2025
2025-10-23 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 23 October 2025, for a Morning on the Hill school visit.

Library Closure
2025-10-30 10:00 - 2025-10-31 16:00
The Library will be closed Thursday 30 and Friday 31 October 2025, due to staff leave.

Morning Closure Library 6 November 2025
2025-11-06 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 6 November 2025, due to a group visit.

Morning Closure Library 12 November 2025
2025-11-12 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Wednesday 12 November 2025, for a Morning on the Hill school visit.

Morning Closure Library 13 November 2025
2025-11-13 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 13 November 2025, for a Morning on the Hill school visit.

Afternoon Closure Library 17 November 2025
2025-11-17 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this afternoon, Monday 17 November 2025, due to a group visit.

Morning Closure Library 20 November 2025
2025-11-20 10:00 - 13:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 20 November 2025, for a Morning on the Hill school visit.

Morning Closure Library 27 November 2025
2025-11-27 10:00 - 14:00
The Library will be closed this morning, Thursday 27 November 2025, due to the quarterly Governors and Guardians meeting taking place in the Long Room.
