Collection highlights, acquisition news, events, exhibits, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work and services of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) at Notre Dame.
“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.
RBSC will be open regular hours during the University of Notre Dame Fall Break, October 17 – 25.
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 IRB 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.
The exhibit is curated by Matthew Knight (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator).
Related Events
September 24-7, 2026 | The ACIS Midwest + South Regional Conference will be hosted by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and held on the University of Notre Dame campus. The theme of the meeting will be “Irish Studies On The Ground: Place, Presence and Community.” Please visit the conference website to view details.
October 2026 | Special Collections will host a lecture by curator Matt Knight, exact date and time TBD. Check back for more information.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Fall 2026! We want to let you know about a variety of things to watch for in the coming semester.
“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.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops
Throughout the semester, curators will lead instructional sessions related to our holdings for undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections materials to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.
Some of the recent acquisitions highlighted on the blog in the past year.
Anticipated Closures
Rare Books and Special Collections is regularly open 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday. The department will be closed for the following holidays and events:
August 20, closing early at 1:45 pm for a Library event (Thursday)
September 7, for Labor Day (Monday)
November 26–27, for Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday)
Our last day open before the campus closure for Christmas Celebration will be Wednesday, December 23. We will reopen on Monday, January 4, 2027.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
This exhibition highlights examples of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning. Showcasing narratives spanning centuries and continents, each story demonstrates that the power of constructing community and cultivating hope transcends time and place.
The exhibition features six distinct collections housed in the Rare Books & Special Collections, and is curated by Hesburgh Libraries faculty members. Click below to learn more about each of the individual exhibits within the exhibition:
Curated by Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu.All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
In honor of Easter, we are sharing two images from the Cuala Press Ephemera Collection (EPH 5002). The Cuala Press was founded in 1908 by Elizabeth Yeats, sister of the poet W. B. Yeats and the artist Jack B. Yeats, who illustrated many of the books and broadsides published by the press. The press was operated in Dublin by Elizabeth and her sister Lily Yeats, and later by George Yeats (William’s wife), through the mid-1940s. In addition to their brother, the Yeats sisters employed various Irish women to create illustrations, including Beatrice Glenavy (Elvery), Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, Pamela Colman Smith, Dorothy Blackham, and Mary Cottenham Yeats.
Happy Easter to you and yours from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Notre Dame.
Left: Easter, text by Susan Langstaff Mitchell, undated (EPH 5002-120) Right: [On Easter Day], text by Temple Lane, undated (EPH 5002-122)
After being closed April 3 in observance of Good Friday, Rare Books and Special Collections will return to regular hours and is open on Monday, April 6, 2026.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
A Community of Solidarity Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
This St. Patrick’s Day and in the March–April spotlight exhibit, Rare Books and Special Collections celebrates the youth of Ireland, who were seen in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the true soul of the Irish Nation. After all, if Irish independence were to be achieved, nationalists would first have to win the hearts and minds of the next generation.
In 1842, a group known as Young Ireland founded a newspaper called The Nation to advocate for a politically independent Ireland. The Nation envisioned an Irish identity undivided by race or religion; united by Irish language and culture; and forged from a romanticized version of Irish history. To achieve these ends, Young Ireland sought a legion more formidable than a thousand men clad in steel: The young intellect of the country.1
One of our prized collections is a series of draft songs composed for The Nation newspaper by one of the founders of Young Ireland, Thomas Davis (Thomas Davis Collection, MSE/IR 1001). Although Davis tragically died of scarlet fever at age thirty, many of his compositions (“A Nation Once Again,” “The West’s Asleep,” and “Lament for Owen Roe O’Neill”), intended to inspire the Irish youth of his time, are still sung today.
Although the British banned the speaking of Irish and the teaching of Ireland’s history from the national school system, associations inspired by the Young Ireland Movement began to encourage children to study the Irish language, play Gaelic sports, and perform Irish drama and music. This alternative education included journals such as Young Ireland (1875-1891) and groups like the Irish Fireside Club (founded 1887), which helped foster a new national identity among the nation’s youth.
These activities served as training grounds for future nationalists and paved the way for the formation of Connradh na Gaedhilge (The Gaelic League) in 1893. This organization continued to solicit the support of Irish youth, and published numerous books, pamphlets, and broadsides intended to ensure children remained at the forefront of the revival of Irish language and culture.
First published by Connradh na Gaedhilge in 1902, An tÁilleán was written by Tadhg Ó Donnchadha (‘Torna’) with illustrations of the ideal country life by Seoirse Ua Fágáin.
‘Torna’ dedicated the book to the youth of Ireland, saying, “Cuimhnighidh air gur i nÉirinn do rugadh sibh, gur ceart dúinn ár ndícheall do dhéanamh ar son Éireann; maireamhaint agus bás d’fhágháil i nÉirinn; agus ó’s í an Gaedhilg ár dTeanga féin, í labhairt í comhnuidhe.” [Remember that you were born in Ireland, and we must do our best for Ireland; to live and die in Ireland; and since Irish is our own language, speak it always.]
Fuínn na Smól (Songs of the Thrushes) is a collection of Irish tunes drawn from manuscripts, oral tradition, and shorter printed works. An tAthair Pádruig Breathnach (1848–1930), a Catholic priest and member of the Gaelic League, collected Irish songs from his parishioners in his youth. He later published them in a series of works like this one, with each tune printed in the Gaelic typeface and set to a melody in tonic solfa.
Although dedicated to children learning Irish in school, these songbooks had much to offer adults committed to the de-anglicization program of the Gaelic League. Sales ran into the tens of thousands, and they had a lasting influence on the Irish oral tradition.2
When Gaelic revivalism became more political, groups like Na Fianna Éireann (Boy Scouts of Ireland), founded in 1909, emerged to support a future military insurrection. First published in 1914, the Fianna Handbook served as the official guide and training manual for Na Fianna Éireann. The Fianna Handbook was the Irish nationalist alternative to the Baden-Powell Boy Scout handbook, with the Fianna portrayed holding rifles, in contrast to the Baden-Powell Scouts, who carried walking sticks.
The guide featured training in signaling, first aid, camping, and military drill, but also contained chapters devoted to a cultural nationalist education. Patrick Pearse contributed a chapter on the legendary Fianna; Countess Markievicz, the group’s founder and ‘Chief,’ wrote an inspiring foreword and designed the cover; Roger Casement penned an essay on chivalry; and Douglas Hyde submitted a chapter in the Irish language.
Current and former Fianna participated in the 1916 Easter Rising, and the organization later worked alongside the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21).
Eighty years after Young Ireland founded The Nation newspaper, the Irish Free State was declared, and Irish Independence followed soon after. The Gaelic revival survived largely because it recognized that nobody was too young to serve their country, and the new Irish state found many former “Firesiders” and Fianna members serving in leadership roles. These once pint-sized radicals ensured that their dream of a free, Gaelic Ireland would pass to the next generation of Irish children.
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Monday, March 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: M.A. Student Presentations (University of Notre Dame) — This semester’s speakers are: Giorgia Buscema and Madeline Grossman.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Women Religious in Male Spaces David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Ireland’s Idealized Community Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
A Community of Solidarity Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
Join Professor Guyda Armstrong (University of Manchester) and Dr Giles Bergel (University of Oxford) for an interactive workshop showcasing new digital methods for studying early modern printing. This session will introduce the research questions and first findings of Envisioning Dante c. 1472-1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page, funded by the UK government (c. £1 million; 2022-25). Participants will be given practical, hands-on demonstrations of the techniques and new digital tools developed by the project for analyzing and comparing early printed books.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies), Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection), David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts), Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator), Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
