NUI Galway Library Digital Collections

Collections hosted on the NUI Galway Library’s digital platform.

Technical Documentation

The digital platform is built on Islandora.

You can see technical documentation that describes API access to the NUI Galway digital platform; this documentation was created by Cillian Joy, of the Library’s Digital Publishing & Innovation group. You can also see some code examples of API access.

Collection Overview

Full listing of available collections: https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/

Tim Robinson Archive

An extensive card catalogue compiled by Tim Robinson throughout the 1980s and 1990s, drawn from his field notes. The series has been arranged by Robinson into civil parishes, and further divided into townlands. For most of the townlands, there are several record cards that give a detailed description of the local landscape. These describe historical, ecclesiastical, geological, and archaeological features. Anecdotes and local lore also feature in these. Robinson adds the names of people who helped him compile his information, usually local people, and often correspondents who sent him information helping him identify the origins of placenames, or certain landmarks and artefacts.

The cards also credit several secondary sources, including the OS maps and corresponding Field Name Books, Hardiman’s History of Galway, Alexander Nimmo’s map of the bogs in the West of Ireland, and many more.
In all cases in this series, the placename Tim Robinson used as his title appears as the title here. Many are in Irish, and some are in English. The corresponding translation is provided in the description.

Collection: https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/islandora/object/nuigalway%253Arobinson
Digitised, geo-rectified maps: http://mapwarper.net/maps/16019, http://mapwarper.net/maps/16140

Abbey Theatre Minute Books

A collection of Abbey Theatre minute books from January 1904 to May 1939. These minute books contain hand-written minutes from Abbey Theatre meetings. Each minute book has been transcribed and this collection provides access to both the transcribed text and the original text displayed in a side-by-side searchable manner.

https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/islandora/object/nuigalway%253Aabbey-theatre-minute-books

The Baflour Albums

The Balfour Album of photographs was originally created in 1893-1895 by the Belfast photographer, Robert John Welch. It was a gift to the former Chief Secretary for Ireland, Arthur J. Balfour in recognition of his support for the building of the Galway-Clifden Railway. The album was presented to Arthur Balfour in the summer of 1896, a year after the railway had opened. It remained in the property of the Balfour family until 1987 when the then Earl of Balfour offered to sell it to the National Library of Ireland. Staff at the National Library felt that it more properly belonged in Galway and it was accordingly offered to the Librarian of the James Hardiman Library who purchased it for the library’s collection.

https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/islandora/object/nuigalway%253Abalfour

Brendan Duddy Papers

Brendan Duddy was born in Derry on 10 June 1936. He became a businessman in his native city, and by the early 1970s he owned and managed two fish-and-chip shops, one in Beechwood Avenue (Creggan) and another in William Street.

His motivation for involvement in community affairs, and eventually in behind-the-scene politics, grew out of a deep interest in politics and debate (“I have been a political analyst all my life”), and out of an upbringing in a mixed community where Protestants marginally outnumbered Catholics, a fact he highlighted when making his statement for the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in 1999.

https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/islandora/object/nuigalway%253Aduddy

Cusack Papers

The Michael Cusack collection is the unique personal collection of the founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), generally acknowledged to be the greatest amateur sporting organisation in the world. The GAA, which remains a dominant force in Ireland’s cultural and sporting life, was founded in 1884 as a highly influential element of the Irish cultural renaissance of the late nineteenth century and of Ireland’s struggle to re-establish its own political, linguistic and cultural identity. Among the most important historical items in the collection are the complete minutes of the Dublin Hurling Club, from 1883. Cusack was Vice-President of the club, a predecessor to the national organisation founded the following year. In addition, there is a diary kept by Cusack on a visit to his native Clare in 1902 and a range of personal, biographical and photographic material on Cusack’s family. Aside from its value for researchers into the cultural forces at work in that seminal period, and in particular the events leading up to the foundation of the GAA, the collection is unique in constituting the only known surviving material in Cusack’s own hand and also in affording an unparalleled insight into the resilient personality of Cusack, the private family man, and his vibrant and gentle wit.

https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/islandora/object/islandora%253A3

Ritchie-Picklow Papers

In 1996 the Ritchie Pickow Phototgraphic Archive was acquired by the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway, along with tapes of sound recordings. The photographs were taken and the recordings made by the husband and wife team George Pickow and Jean Ritchie on visits to Ireland in 1952 and 1953. Two exhibitions of the Ritchie Pickow Photographic Archive have been held at NUIG in 1992 and 1996. It was under the auspices of Dáibhín Ó Cróinín, lecturer in the History Department of the university and a grandson of one of the vocalists recorded by Jean Ritchie, that the collection was acquired for the Library Archives.

https://digital.library.nuigalway.ie/islandora/object/nuigalway%253Aritchie-pickow