Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Postponed until Spring 2027 Thursday, October 29 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Neither Here, Nor There: Directionality in Dante’s Paradiso” by Arielle Saiber (Johns Hopkins).
Pop-Up Exhibit — From Text to Table: Reviving Latin American Historical Cookbooks
Thursday, November 5, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm | Join us for a day-long pop-up exhibit exploring the fascinating world of Latin American culinary history, art, and research. Spanish students from the “From Text to Table” course invite you to discover four rare historical cookbooks from the Rare Books & Special Collections.
The Fall 2026 Exhibition | The Delirium of the Brave: Sacrifice for the Soul of the Irish Nation
“Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.” — P.H. Pearse, August 1915
In 1803, Robert Emmet led a failed rebellion to overthrow British rule in Ireland. In 1848, a group called Young Ireland staged a brief revolt that was hastily crushed. The Fenian Brotherhood invaded British North America in 1866, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood organized a series of unsuccessful raids in Ireland the following year. On Easter Monday, 1916, a small group of Irish insurgents launched a rebellion in Dublin that was quashed in under a week. While these four attempts to create an independent Ireland may have failed, they each gave rise to a powerful romantic narrative that captivated the spirits of the Irish at home and abroad. Out of sacrifice and tragedy sprang patriotic verse, defiant journalism, cultural revival, and eventually, Irish freedom from British rule.
This exhibit features items from Rare Books and Special Collections and the University Archives that document the heroes, martyrs, and idealistic men and women who forged modern Ireland.
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.