books – RBSC at ND

The Beautiful Game in the Stacks: Reading World Cup History

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

As fans around the world watch the 23rd World Cup this summer hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, RBSC recently browsed the stacks for World Cup history. We are pleased to highlight these sources from the collection documenting the first two World Cup tournaments in 1930 and 1934.

The inaugural World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, and the host nation ended up winning the championship. After the tournament, the Uruguayan Football Association published an illustrated history of the event, Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football = La Coupe du monde : Montevideo, julio de 1930 (The First World Football Championships – The World Cup: Montevideo, July 1930). This oversized book commemorates and documents the tournament in more than 120 pages and hundreds of photographs.

Printed in both Spanish and French, the book contains plentiful information about the teams, players, and games. This page devoted to the runner-up Argentinian team is typical of the coverage of the participating countries (page 26). The book also includes images and descriptions of every tournament match, like this two-page spread about the United States’ 3-0 opening round victory over Belgium (pages 42-43).

The book gave extensive coverage to the semifinals and the finals, intricately documenting each goal in the championship game. Here we see a description of Uruguay’s third goal by Santos Iriarte in the 68th minute that gave Uruguay the lead for good en route to its 4-2 victory (page 96).

Four years later, Italy, under dictator Benito Mussolini, hosted the second World Cup, and, again the home team came away victorious. In advance of the tournament, the Italian National Tourism Board published this 26-page English-language pamphlet, See Italy and the World’s Football Championship, to entice visitors to come to Italy despite the continuing Great Depression.

The competition took place in eight different locations, which, as the pamphlet pointed out, “are most attractive, as only Italian cities can be” (page 6). The finals were held in Rome, which the Tourism Board declared, “embraces every attraction in Italy and is unsurpassed by any other city in the world” (page 20).

Mussolini Stadium of Turin (left) and San Siro Stadium of Milan (right).

The booklet featured photographs, descriptions, and simple maps of each of the host cities and stadiums, including the Mussolini Stadium of Turin and the San Siro Stadium of Milan. The championship game, which would see Italy defeat Czechoslovakia 2-1, was held in the Stadium of the National Fascist Party at Rome.

Rome and the Stadium of the National Fascist Party.

Title page of *Lo Sport in Regime Fascista* featuring Mussolini.

The following year, the Italian Olympic Committee in collaboration with the popular magazine Lo Sport Fascista jointly published Lo sport in regime fascista : 28 ottobre 1922-I 28 ottobre 1935-XIII (Sport in the Fascist Regime: 28 October 1922 I – 28 October 1935 XIII). This book recounted and celebrated Italian athletic achievements across a myriad of sports, including Italy’s recent World Cup title. The book’s frontispiece, which included a large image of Mussolini, demonstrated the close relationship between Italian sports and the ruling Fascist regime.

Calcio—or soccer—was featured in the fifth chapter, and the book revelled in Italy’s 1934 World Cup success. “Only in Fascist Italy could one seriously think about organizing the Second World Cup tournament” the book contended. “Only Italy could have taken on such a massive amount of work and responsibility. And it was a magnificent, beautiful, unforgettable event. Our beautiful sports fields, modern and superbly equipped; endless streams of foreigners who enjoyed our intelligent and truly affectionate hospitality; the battles between great champions, fought in an ideal atmosphere of serenity, discipline, and understanding” (page 40).

Original Italian: “Solo nell’Italia Fascista si poteva seriamente pensare all’organizzazione del II Torneo per la disputa della Coppa del Mondo…. Solo l’Italia poteva accettare un simile cumulo di lavoro e di responsabilità. E fu una cosa grandiosa, bellissima, indimenticabile. I nostri bei campi sportivi, moderni e mirabilmente attrezzati; interminable carovane di stranieri che godettero la nostra intelligente e veramente affettuosa ospitalità; battaglie di grandi campioni combattute in un clima ideale di serenità, di disciplina, di comprensione.”

Commemorative Italian postage stamps printed for the World Cup, or the *Campionato del Mondo* (page 34).

The book celebrated the victorious Italian national team, writing that “great goals, in truth, still await our formidable army of footballers. They will be achieved in the name of Fascism and for the glory of a sport that has truly brought Italy unparalleled satisfaction. The path already traveled and the conquests achieved, give the march of Italian footballers the rhythm and air of the inevitable” (page 40).

Original Italian: “Grandi mète, in verità, ulteriormente attendono il formidabile esercito dei nostri calciatori. Saranno raggiunte, nel nome del fascismo e per la gloria di uno sport che veramente diede all’Italia impareggiabili soddisfazioni. Il cammino percorso, le conquiste fatte, danno alla marcia dei calciatori italiani il ritmo ed il significato dell’ineluttabile.”

The Italian National Team that won the 1934 World Cup (page 35).

World Cup soccer has always been influenced by contemporary politics, and, like the Italian Fascists, national leaders have often sought to co-opt sporting success and athletic achievements for their own partisan reasons.

But, for just as long, many fans, spectators, athletes, and other observers have believed that global sporting events like the World Cup could serve a larger purpose and help to bridge the differences and conflicts between people. In his speech at the welcoming banquet for the delegations at the inaugural 1930 World Cup, for example, Dr. Raoul Jude, President of the Uruguayan Football Association, expressed his hope that the tournament could be a unifying event:

“Welcome, you travelers who arrive from all points of the compass, bringing us the message of solidarity and cordiality from different peoples and races, united nevertheless, above all differences and all of life’s hardships, within the higher fellowship of a lofty purpose aimed at the betterment of all mankind.

We read the clear message you bring us; and though some parts are not written in a language familiar to us, we instantly grasp their meaning through the frank gestures and the serene, united gaze of those who bear them” (Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football, pages 33-34).

Original Spanish: Bien venidos vosotros, viajeros que llegáis de todos los puntos cardinales trayéndonos el mensaje solidario y cordial de pueblos y razas diferentes, hermanadas no obstante, por encima de todas las diferencias y de todas las miserias de la vida, en la comunidad superior de un alto designio en el sentido del mejoramiento de todos los hombres de la tierra.

Leemos el claro mensaje que nos traéis, y aunque algunos de ellos no están escritos en la lengua que nos es familiar, descubrimos en seguida su sentido en el gesto franco y en la mirada serena y unánime de sus portadores.”

Players from the Uruguayan National Team celebrate the 1930 World Cup title on the pitch after the game (*Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football*, page 98).

With the 2026 World Cup soon coming to a close, we hope all teams, players, and fans have experienced a taste of La alégria del triunfo—the joy of victory—like the jubilant 1930 Uruguayan team seen here.

Thanks to Ruben Celani, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Italian Studies Curatorial Fellow, and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator, for assistance with Italian and Spanish translations.

Declarations of Independence

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States, Rare Books and Special Collections offers a look at a series of copies of the Declaration of Independence held in our collections. The process of creating the Declaration of Independence has been written about widely and even celebrated on Broadway (1776 [1969; revivals in 1997 and 2022]). But what happened after Congressional delegates agreed on the text and consented to sign the document? How did Congress disseminate the Declaration?

During the late eighteenth century, news was broadcast through broadsides (posters) and newspapers, as well as orally. The first copies of the Declaration of Independence were designed and printed by John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer and newspaper publisher. He typeset a large broadside version of the document on the night of July 4th and had printed at least several hundred copies by late morning on July 5th. Today, only 25 copies of Dunlap’s broadside exist.

It took time for the Declaration of Independence to reach all of the newly united states. RBSC holds a facsimile copy of one such later printing: the July 26, 1776 issue of the Virginia Gazette, which published the Declaration in full. The Virginia Gazette was published in Virginia’s capital, Williamsburg, and the paper published official news and business of the colony, and the state, of Virginia.

The same Virginia Gazette issue also reported on where the Declaration of Independence had been read publicly. Between early July and mid-August 1776 the document was printed and proclaimed across the United States, which was news in itself. The first public reading occurred on Monday, July 8th, in Philadelphia and other cities in Pennsylvania, and in New Jersey, using Dunlap’s broadside copy. In most places, the reading took on trappings of a ceremony. The local sheriff would read the Declaration on the steps of the courthouse, the gathered crowd would cheer, bells would ring, and soldiers would fire a salute. Coats of arms and other symbols of the British crown were also removed from buildings and burned.

By the middle of August 1776 the Declaration of Independence had reached London, where its text was changed by newspaper publishers worried about the document’s seditious content. Publishers excerpted, censored, and suppressed the text. These changes were reprinted in turn by printers and publishers beyond London to Europe, where the Declaration appeared in local newspapers by the end of August.

Rare Books and Special Collections holds a London printing of the Declaration of Independence. The Gentleman’s Magazine, a widely-read, general interest periodical, published the Declaration in its August issue. The magazine’s editor followed the pattern of some London newspapers, censoring words that criticised the monarch. As a result, “King,” “tyranny,” “Prince” and “tyrant” have been suppressed in this copy.

Some British editors altered the text of the Declaration to soften its criticism of George III. This might explain the marginal annotation in Hesburgh Library’s copy of the Gentleman’s Magazine. The handwritten note moderates Jefferson’s language to make the monarch appear less negligent. In referring to laws for which colonists petitioned the king, the annotator changed “he [the king] has utterly neglected to attend to them” to “he has utterly neglected to assent to them.” Did the editor believe that George III preferred to have denied rather than ignored his subjects?

Copies of the Declaration of Independence also circulated within the United States. As the United States expanded during the first decades of the nineteenth century, citizens needed to be informed about their government and the state of the nation; publishers and booksellers supplied. Hesburgh Libraries holds a number of these early nineteenth-century copies, including this 1811 copy published by Robert Harper, a printer in south central Pennsylvania. He published the nation’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—along with the constitutions of all 17 states. Among the purchasers was a bookseller in Pittsburgh that ordered 500 copies—a huge supply that the seller believed they could sell to newcomers to the frontier city.

Rare Books and Special Collections also holds a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was reprinted by the National Archives in 1952, along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Published together as The Charters of Freedom and at the height of the Cold War, it celebrates the inauguration of the documents’ shared, permanent exhibition at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. In this publication, the National Archives reproduced the Declaration of Independence in its most formal and famous form: the engrossed copy of the Declaration that was completed and signed on August 2, 1776. An engrossed copy is text written on parchment in a large hand.

All of these copies are different—in format and sometimes in content. Yet in aggregate they represent Americans’ adherence—for two and a half centuries–to the idea that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Happy Fourth of July!

Bibliography

Sneff, Emily. When the Declaration of Independence Was News. New York: Oxford University Press, 2026.

The National Archives, Charters of Freedom; the Declaration of Independence.

National Caribbean American Heritage Month 2026

by Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator

Students are typically surprised to learn that there is a long history of Spanish-language publishing in the United States. This history even includes cities, like New York and Philadelphia, that were never part of the vast geographies of the Spanish Empire or the Mexican Republic (which now constitute more than one third of the territory of the U.S.’s 48 contiguous states). Rather than being simply presented with this information, they are often prompted to make this “discovery” on their own through their examination of printed books: an opportunity, during a class visit or an appointment in the Reading Room, to thoughtfully explore not just the intellectual content but also the individual histories of books, as objects.

Special Collections has recently acquired, through both purchase and donation, a number of publications that serve this exercise well; texts that, like the Caribbean Sea, cross geopolitical boundaries, complicate national narratives, and question literary canons, all while connecting cultures, histories, and geographies in the process. One of those publications is highlighted here.

*Lecciones orales sobre la Historia de Cuba, pronunciadas en el Ateneo Democrático Cubano de Nueva York, por Pedro Santacilia*. Nueva-Orleans: Imprenta de Luis Eduardo del Cristo, 1859.

Cuba sits at the crossroads of the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea; and the story of this book, like the story of the island, is shaped by those waters, and by the peoples and polities that those waters have touched. The title of the book provides its first lesson in the Americas’ interconnected geographies of empire and independence, slavery and freedom, exile and return: Lectures on the History of Cuba, Pronounced in the Cuban Democratic Society of New York, by Pedro Santacilia. At the time of its publication in 1859, Santacilia (1834, Santiago de Cuba – 1910, Mexico City) had twice lived in Spain in forced exile, once as a child, due to his father’s political activities, and once as an adult, due to his own; escaped Spain via Gibraltar and moved to New York, where these lectures were given, and where he wrote and published alongside other Cuban exiles; moved to New Orleans, which was another refuge for Latin American exiles, and where this book was published; and, finally, settled in Mexico.

Copyright page, from the District of New Orleans.

Santacilia was always a fierce proponent of Cuban independence, but his ideas about how independence should look, including how it should be achieved, evolved over time. He presented and published his Lectures during a period in which many Cubans, himself included, viewed U.S. military intervention, and even U.S. annexation of Cuba, as the most expeditious route to liberation from the Spanish empire. In fact, he dedicated this book to Domingo de Goucuría, and published it through the press of Luis Eduardo del Cristo, both of whom were prominent filibusteros: they supported and fought alongside Venezuelan-born Narciso López and Tennessee-born William Walker in their attempts to invade, colonize, and establish slave states in parts of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

However, it was also in New Orleans where Santacilia met Mexican President Benito Juárez, a staunch abolitionist who himself spent two stints in the city as an exile, first during the dictatorship of Antonio López de Santa Anna, and then during the War of Reform. Santacilia ended up following Juárez back to México, married one of his daughters, witnessed the Mexican Republic’s resistance to the Second French Empire, fostered Mexican support for Cuban independence, and ultimately rejected U.S. interventionism in favor of a fully sovereign Cuban state.

Bookstore stamp for “Librería Martí” in Habana, Cuba.

RBSC’s copy of Santacilia’s Lectures followed a trajectory befitting its history. Published in New Orleans, it eventually made its way to Cuba, the subject of its pages. While we don’t know how or when it arrived on the island, a stamp, and accompanying handwritten note, tell us that it was sold by the famous Habana bookshop, Librería Martí — which itself was named after the great Cuban politician, author, and anti-imperialist, José Martí, who Santacilia befriended in Mexico. The purchase had to have taken place at some point between the mid-1920s, when the shop opened, and 1960, when it closed in the wake of the Revolution. RBSC’s copy, however, was not acquired from any agent in Cuba, but rather from a second-hand bookseller in Mexico City, where Santacilia built his life and legacy, and where he died and was buried.

Scholar Rodolfo J. Cortina once asked, “Cuban literature, Cuban exile literature, Cuban-American literature: where does one end and the other begin?”¹ In answering this question, he posited that Santacilia’s Lectures, like other 19th-century texts — poems, plays, newspapers, novels, etc. — published in the United States, by Cuban authors living and writing in the U.S., should absolutely be included in the Cuban-American literary canon, just as they should be included in the island’s own history of letters. The context and content of the Lectures, and the movement of RBSC’s particular copy through Caribbean and North American geographies, certainly supports this view.

Learn more about National Caribbean American Heritage Month and its history, as well as the many contributions of Notre Dame’s Caribbean American community members.

Footnotes

1 See the Introduction to Cortina’s chapter, “Cuban Literature of the United States: 1824–1959,” in the openly accessible, digital volume, Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, edited by Ramón Gutiérrez and Genaro Padilla, first published by Arte Público Press in 1993. https://artepublicopress.manifoldapp.org/projects/recovery-vol-1

“America, ungrateful land!” A Black Veteran and Poet Rebukes American Racism

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

To commemorate Memorial Day, RBSC honors the African American poet Charles Frederick White, who, over a century ago, wrote a sharply-worded poem that condemned racial discrimination against African American veterans.

Charles Frederick White (1876-1955) was a combat veteran of the Spanish-American War. He published his most famous poem, “Plea of the Negro Soldier,” in 1907 in the Springfield (MA) Republican; it appeared the next year in his only published collection of poems, Plea of the Negro Soldier and a Hundred Other Poems.

In “Plea of the Negro Soldier,” White expresses outrage at his and other African American veterans’ treatment after honorably serving their country. He places their reception into a larger historical context of white racism and violence, and seeks justice for Black veterans and all African Americans.

America, ungrateful land!
Whose treacherous soil my blood has dyed,
. . .
who has denied
Me right to live, to vote, to learn,
Whose laws protect me not from wrong,
Who will permit me not to earn
An honest living, who in song
Doth boast a land of freedom, but
Whose flag waves o’er a land of crime,

Born in Tennessee to parents who had been enslaved, White’s earliest interests focused on attaining an education and discovering African American history. After working a series of low-paid jobs, he enlisted in the army. His hopes for economic and social mobility were dashed, however, when he realized that white Americans held his service in no regard.

But I, alas! have given all
In answer to thy urgent call,
Exposed my life to sword and ball,
And now, as o’er me creeps the fall
Of life, I find no recompense
But base discharge, with no defense

Determined to achieve an education, White entered Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire where he could maintain himself by combining work and study. Although his tenure there was cut short by southern students who insisted on White’s expulsion, he found a more satisfactory academic experience at Williston Seminary in western Massachusetts, from which White graduated in 1909.

While at Williston White published Plea of the Negro Solider at his own expense, even typesetting the pages on the press of the local Easthampton (MA) Enterprise newspaper.

White eventually settled in Philadelphia, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and had a long career in real estate and politics.

Although White published no more serious poetry after Plea of the Negro Soldier, his work is an important expression of American ideals denied and a demand for justice.

Republic cannot long endure
When autocrat can feel secure
To heap injustice on the poor

Source:

Roger J. Bresnahan, “Charles Fred White: A Forgotten Black Poet,” Negro History Bulletin, Vol. 40, no. 1 (1977): 659-661.

Upcoming Events: May 2026 and through the summer

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

[TODAY!] Tuesday, April 28 at 4:00pm | “The Ghost Behind Manuel Puig: Discovering the Mario Fenelli Archive” by Martín Villagarcía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).

There are currently no public events scheduled in May, June, or July.

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

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 Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

The Gay ~~Olympic~~ Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

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.

The currently installed spotlight exhibits are Éire Óg / Young Ireland (March–April 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.

RBSC will be closed Monday, May 25, for Memorial Day and Friday, July 3rd, for the Independence Day long weekend.

Special Collections’ Spring 2026 Exhibition — Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

Our primary exhibition for Spring 2026, Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections, is currently open and will continue through June 15, 2026.

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:

Women Religious in Male Spaces

Curated by David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic

Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

A Community of Solidarity

Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)

The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport

Curated by Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

Ireland’s Idealized Community

Curated by Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)

Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War

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.

Upcoming Events: April 2026

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Monday, April 16 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Dante’s Performative Poetics” by Francesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University).

Tuesday, April 28 at 4:00pm | “The Ghost Behind Manuel Puig: Discovering the Mario Fenelli Archive” by Martín Villagarcía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

The Gay ~~Olympic~~ Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

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.

The current spotlight exhibits are Éire Óg / Young Ireland (March–April 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.

Special Collections will be closed on April 3, 2026, for the Notre Dame Easter Holiday. We will resume regular hours on April 6, 2026.

We will also be closed on April 21, 2026, from 11:00am to 2:30pm.

Éire Óg / Young Ireland — a spotlight exhibit in Special Collections

by Matthew Knight, Irish Studies Librarian and Curator

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.

Tadgh Ó Donnchadha, *An tÁilleán*. Dublin, 1924.
Rare Books Large PB 1399 .O42765 A5 1924

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.

Footnotes

1 The Nation, 14 October 1842.

2 See Nicholas Carolan, ‘Fr Pádruig Breathnach and Irish Traditional Song’, Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore Society of Ireland, vol. 87 (2019), pp. 82–99.

Previous St. Patrick’s Day blog posts:

2025: Discovering Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland
2022: The Breastplate of Saint Patrick — Thomas Kinsella and the Dolmen Press
2021: Competing with Finian’s Rainbow
2020: St. Patrick’s Day Postcards
2019: St. Patrick and the Nun of Kenmare
2018: St. Patrick’s Day in America, 1872

Upcoming Events: March 2026

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.

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

The Gay ~~Olympic~~ Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

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.

The current spotlight exhibits are Pennant Race: Souvenir Fan Pennants of the Negro Baseball Leagues (January–February 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.

Special Collections will be open regular hours during Notre Dame’s Spring Break (March 9 – 13, 2026).

A Sea Monster in the Margins: Reading Pliny in 1542

by Daniela Rovida, Rare Books Cataloging and Metadata Librarian

Title page of book, printed in Venice by Melchiorre Sessa in 1516. It displays the characteristic printer’s device of the Sessa family, while the imprint and publication date are given in the colophon, as was common for early printed books.

Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Natural History) is one of the most important books to survive from the ancient world. Written in the first century CE, it is the earliest surviving encyclopedia and one of the most ambitious works of knowledge ever attempted. In thirty-seven books, Pliny gathered information on astronomy, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, pharmacology, mineralogy, and art, drawing on hundreds of Greek and Roman sources as well as his own observations (Siegfried, 2023). For more than a thousand years, this work shaped how Europeans understood the natural world.

Pliny believed that knowledge should be practical and widely shared. His encyclopedia was not meant only for philosophers, but for farmers, physicians, craftsmen, and administrators. Although modern science has corrected many of his claims, Natural History remained a foundational reference throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance because it compiled and preserved ancient learning that would otherwise have been lost (Stannard, 2026).

Pliny’s commitment to understanding nature is reflected in the dramatic circumstances of his death. In 79 CE, while serving as commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum, he witnessed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Instead of fleeing, Pliny sailed closer, both to observe the phenomenon and possibly to help people trapped along the coast. He died during the eruption, most likely from poisonous gases. Our knowledge of this event comes from letters written by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who provided the only surviving eyewitness account of the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum and narrated the story of a scholar who sacrificed his life in the pursuit of knowledge (Open Culture, 2022).

Woodcut marking the opening of Book II, which is centered on topics such as astronomy and meteorology.

Pliny’s influence continued through the centuries. During the Renaissance, his encyclopedia was rediscovered, printed, and translated for new audiences. A key figure in this renewed interest was Cristoforo Landino, a humanist scholar who translated Natural History from Latin into the Florentine dialect, which is the foundation of modern Italian. By making the text available in the vernacular as early as 1476, Landino allowed readers without formal knowledge of Latin to engage with ancient science and natural history (Ashworth, 2021). Landino’s translation reflects a broader effort, supported by the recent introduction of movable-type printing, to make learning more accessible beyond universities and monasteries.

Woodcut marking the opening of Book III. Books III–VI focus on geography and ethnography, while Book VII is devoted to anthropology.

Early printed editions of Pliny’s work were often richly illustrated with woodcuts. These images served a dual purpose. On one level, they decorated the book making it more appealing to readers and, at times, marking the transition between sections. On another, more important level, they helped readers visualize the animals, plants, and places described in the text. In a time when direct observation was becoming increasingly valued, woodcuts acted as visual tools for understanding nature, even when the images were imperfect or imaginative. These illustrations show how early modern readers tried to reconcile ancient texts with what they could see in the real world (Dlabacová, 2018).

Woodcuts marking the openings of the four books devoted to zoology (Books VIII–XI).

Even more revealing than the printed images are the handwritten notes left by readers in the margins. Marginal annotations show that Natural History was not treated as an unquestionable authority. Readers compared Pliny’s descriptions with their own experience and observation, added new information, and sometimes corrected or expanded the text. For modern scholars, these annotations provide rare insight into how early readers interacted with scientific texts.

The copy of Pliny’s Natural History held at the University of Notre Dame offers a remarkable example of this practice. In the margins, a reader describes a giant sea turtle caught by fishermen off the coast of Lisbon. The annotator states that the animal, which measured approximately seven and a half feet long and nine feet wide, was initially believed by some people to be a sea monster and records that it was presented to the king of Portugal. The reader also reports having seen the animal firsthand and identifies it with the turtle described by Pliny on the same page where the annotation appears.

Illustration of a turtle and the annotation on folios LIXv and LXr, at the page where Pliny discusses these animals in Chapter IX (on aquatic animals).

Text of the annotation and translation:

“Nel anno MDXXXXII nel mese di Aprile i piscatori olysiponesi presero sul mare oceano una testuggine la quale io stesso vidi & disegnai come si vede qui acanto; era lungha piedi sette e mezo, larga d’un corno ad altro (ouer’ alle) piedi noue / hauea il guscio amodo di liuto, il color nero, insomma fatta in tuto come qui discriue Plinio negli Tragloditi trouarsene. Ma credetero alcuni ch[e] no[n] fosse testuggine ma altro animale o mostro marino prodotto dal mare, della parte di sotto era di biancho e nero machiatta, era assai bruta & mirabile & fu portata inanzi il sereniss[imo] RE di portoguesi.”

In the year 1542, in the month of April, the fishermen of Lisbon caught in the ocean sea a turtle, which I myself saw and drew, as can be seen here beside this text. It was seven and a half feet long, and nine feet wide from one horn (or fin?) to the other. It had a shell shaped like a lute, black in color; in short, it was made entirely as Pliny describes the turtles found among the Troglodytes. However, some believed that it was not a turtle, but another animal or a sea monster produced by the sea. Underneath it was spotted white and black, it was quite ugly and remarkable, and it was brought before his serene highness the King of Portugal.

Alongside this annotation are three detailed drawings of this creature, likely a leatherback turtle, placed directly next to the relevant passage in Pliny’s encyclopedia. Elsewhere in the margins, a reader drew the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza, next to the section of the book with Pliny’s descriptions of these monuments. These drawings and the numerous annotations, in more than one language and likely from multiple hands, found in various sections of the book, show how readers used both text and image to connect ancient knowledge with contemporary experience.

Drawings of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza (Book XXXVI – leaf CCXLVIII). Books XXXIII-XXXVII cover materials and applied arts, highlighting the role of minerals and stones in making metalwork, statues, sculpture, and gemstones.

Together, the translation, woodcuts, and marginal annotations reveal how Natural History functioned as a living book. Pliny’s encyclopedia was not only read, it was questioned, illustrated, updated, and personalized. These traces remind us that knowledge is shaped through the interplay of texts, images, and lived experience.

For modern researchers, books like this are invaluable. They reveal not only what people knew about the natural world, but how knowledge was shared over time. Marginal notes document early attempts to identify species and reconcile classical authorities with new discoveries from travel and exploration. The presence of drawings alongside text shows how observation and visual evidence became central to scientific understanding. Preserved in Special Collections, volumes like Pliny’s Natural History remain essential sources for understanding how modern scientific thinking emerged and why the dialogue between past knowledge and present observation still matters today.

Works Cited

Ashworth, W. B., Jr. (2021, September 24). Cristoforo Landino. Linda Hall Library. https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/cristoforo-landino/

Dlabacová, A. (2018, November 13). Throw away that tedious text! 15th-century illustrated books in 18th- and 19th-century hands. Leiden Medievalists Blog. https://www.leidenmedievalistsblog.nl/articles/throw-away-that-tedious-text/

Jones, J. (2022, August 25). The only written eye-witness account of Pompeii’s destruction: Hear Pliny the Younger’s letters on the Mount Vesuvius eruption. Open Culture. https://www.openculture.com/2022/08/the-only-written-eye-witness-account-of-pompeiis-destruction.html

Stannard, J. (2026). Pliny the Elder. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pliny-the-Elder

Siegfried, T. (2023, February 2). Pliny the Elder’s radical idea to catalog knowledge. Knowable Magazine. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2023/pliny-elder-first-encyclopedia