This week (beginning 18 May) The River-side will post a series of blog posts comprising a student-created online exhibition Mapping Cork: Trade, culture and politics in medieval and early modern Ireland. This online exhibition is curated and overseen by Dr Małgorzata Krasnodębska-D’Aughton, Senior Lecturer, UCC’s School of History and Elaine Harrington, Special Collections Librarian, UCC Library. Four MA in Medieval History students: Andrew Neville, Emmanuel Alden, Patrick McKee and David O’Mahony, created the exhibition as part of HI6091 Skills for Medieval Historians. Dr Diarmuid Scully, Lecturer in Medieval History in the School of History has written an introduction to Mapping Cork.
This online exhibition uses a map of Cork from the early seventeenth-century Civitates orbis terrarum housed by UCC’s Special Collections to explore the themes of urban and national identity with a particular focus on Cork city as a centre of trade, culture and politics.
The exhibition celebrates the ongoing collaboration between Special Collections and the MA in Medieval History programme; this collaboration has already brought about three other online exhibitions inspired by the Library’s rare books and facsimiles: The Luttrell Psalter, The Book of Kells and Viking Cork. We thank Dr Hiram Morgan and Dr Diarmuid Scully for their comments and advice on the text of the blog, and Peter Finnegan for his talk on the Blackstone Launchpad facilities available to postgraduate students.
Many thanks from all in the project for the generosity in providing images free of charge from the National Library of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin Library, Utrecht University and the Cork Historical & Archaeological Society. Our thanks also to the National Library of Ireland, Ghent University Library, the British Library, the Library of Congress and Cambridge University in providing fair use or Creative Commons images.
More importantly, the project has been completed during the COVID-19 crisis and its completion is a great testimony to the value of teamwork and collegiality, and the commitment of the MA students to produce high quality research during challenging times.
All posts may be accessed via https://blogs.ucc.ie/wordpress/theriverside/tag/civitates-orbis-terrarum/ Please share posts as #MappingCork.