RCB Library Notes
RCB Library Welcomes VOICES Project Team
In an exciting development, the RCB Library, in conjunction with the Dean and Chapter of St Patrick’s Cathedral, is collaborating with the ambitious VOICES Project which aims to recover the lived experiences, of ‘ordinary’, non–elite women in early modern Ireland – voices that were up to now largely ignored or underrepresented in Irish history.
The five–year European Research Council project, led by Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, School of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin, will offer a new narrative of early modern Ireland, placing women’s perspectives at the centre of Irish history. It will revolutionise our understanding of the history of women in early modern Ireland. It will also provide important insights into how history repeats itself over time and across geographies and how women’s experiences of social upheaval, civil war, extreme trauma and sexual violence have been politicised.
The RCB Library hosts relevant records for the period – not least the parish registers – but also the Early Modern records of St Patrick’s Cathedral which document significant social and economic developments in the city and county of Dublin, and beyond relevant for this period.
The VOICES team has recently welcomed Michael Flaherty, who completed an M.Phil in Early Modern History at TCD and has already utilised a wide variety of the sources available in the RCB Library. Liaising closely with Dr. Susan Hood (RCBL Librarian & Archivist) and the VOICES Project, Michael will research women in the records at the Library.
The project which runs from September 2026 to August 2027, will focus on the integration of recently catalogued records of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (RCBL C2.10), within the wider Cathedral archive. It will pay close attention to the collection of property and legal records of the Cathedral during the early modern period, particularly pertaining to lease holdings by women.
Launching the collaboration, some of the VOICES team visited the Representative Church Body Library where Michael presented the array of valuable material available such as leases and rentals where women feature as tenants and occupants of property.
Further information about the visit is available on the voicesproject.ie website and through this link (click here)