Courtney McGrailThe Books Editor
Marsh’s Library in the shadow of St Patrick’s Cathedral is the oldest public library in Ireland. It remains largely unchanged since the 18th Century, with the books still fenced into little cubicles behind wooden screens.
However, I suspect it is visited more by tourists than by natives of the city. This is a great pity, for it is one of the great literary treasures houses of the country. Some of these treasures currently on display are of particular interest.
The main exhibition is attached to the name of James Joyce – always a figure to attract interest from a wide audience. Taking the description of Stephen’s visit to the library in Joyce’s early and abandoned work Stephen Hero, based on a visit Joyce himself made, the exhibition displays books relating to Joachim of Fiora and other works and commentaries on the Spiritual Franciscans, an offshoot of the main order which pursued varied esoteric interests.
I was especially interested in all of this, as in my biography James Joyce: The Years of Growth had discussed the appeal of Joachim’s ideas to Joyce. He divided time into three eras, that of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. To Joyce too the terms Father, Son and Holy Spirit were especially resonated. Joachim saw a new age dawning – as so many prophetic souls of the past and present did and do. But it is interesting to see the books, with their remarkable illustrations, set out. Here is an example of how complex Joyce’s relations with Catholic culture – medieval and modern – was.
But many other early books relating to the Franciscans and Ireland are on show. The catalogue describing them is a first class production, very handsomely produced with colour plates (thanks largely to the generous sponsors official and otherwise that the library has retained). One senses a new dynamism in the running of Marsh’s Library.
But for the visitor there is an additional exhibition of Jewish books. This, too, relates in a way to Joyce, but much more to the intellectual life of the Hebrew congregations in Dublin at the end of the 19th Century and after.
The books show the range of their thought and their connections with important centres of Jewish life such as Amsterdam and Lublin. Dr Shlomo Berger of the University of Amsterdam, who curated the exhibition, provides a pamphlet commentary on it.
Dubliners once had a tendency to see the Jewish community as a poor one, filled with sweat shop owners, money lenders, and small scale craftsman like window menders. But here the visitor is put in contact with the community’s rich intellectual and spiritual life, based on the Torah and the other books of the Old Testament and on rabbinical traditions. All too often in the past, despite some shared traditions with Christians, this culture has been literally a closed book to most Dubliners. Both exhibitions will enlarge the views of visitors about life and learning in Dublin in past centuries.
Marsh’s Library opening hours (except Tuesday) are: 9:30am to 5pm; Saturdays: 10am to 5pm.
A visit to the Jewish Museum at
3 Walworth Road, off Victoria Road, in Portobello, will fill out the daily life and characters of Jewish Dublin in all its variety.