Script:
Music: Sean O’Riada: Mise Eire
In 2005 the most impressive private library of Irish history anywhere in the world was uncovered in Mayo. In accordance with her late husband’s wishes, Mrs Anne Clarke gifted the Jackie Clarke Collection in perpetuity to people of Ballina, Mayo and Ireland.
Music: Sean O’Riada: Mise Eire
Truly a national treasure, the Jackie Clarke Library and Archives is now under the stewardship of Mayo County Council. Its discovery has been welcomed as an iconic attraction in Ireland, a new centre of international importance for Irish cultural tourism, scholarship and education.
Its breath and importance once only known to its creator is now being made available to all.This incredible library has been discovered to contain over 100,000 itemsspanning nearly 400 years of Irish history; its earliest documents dating to the 1600s.
Voice Over: Sinéad McCoole, Manager of the Jackie Clarke Library and Archives:
‘The former Provincial Bank on Pearse Street in Ballina was acquired by Mayo County Council last year to house the Jackie Clarke Library and Archives. I am going to take you in and show you what we envision for this project.’
‘We are standing now in the former Provincial Bank thatwas built in 1881, now that it has come into public ownership to house the Jackie Clarke Library and Archives, it will be ideally suited to be refurbished, to be conserved, to keep the character of what was this old building, this banking hall, the family home of the bank manager, the enclosed garden, all of these things will lend themselves wonderfully to become an educational complex, a public amenityto house what the largest and most important private collection of Irish material in the world.’
Born John Thomas Clarke in O’Rahilly Street, Ballina Co Mayo in March of 1928. Jackie Clarke began collecting at 14, he visited the Book Bureau run by Joe Clarke, a veteran of 1916. This friendship was to be the cornerstone of this fine library. The early teenage passion of collecting newspapers and journals was to evolve into an all-consuming past-time as he acquired one irreplaceable document and book after another.
An ordinary man with an extraordinary passion for Ireland’s history and love of his country, his collection has something for everyone, its cohesion is that is of Ireland, about Ireland and the Irish. It has no one political viewpoint.
This treasure house of primary material is a rare book library, a newspaper library, a film archive, a photographic archive, a map library and an archive of primary material with ancient manuscripts, illustrations, street literature, official government publications and even illicit documentation.
By its sheer range and diversity, the library has no single political view point: For many years it has been acknowledged by the cognoscenti as one of the most remarkable libraries on this island.
This Library shares the international stage with collections such as the RosenbachMuseum and Library in Philadelphia and the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin.
The 1798 collection is without compare, with the French cockade worn by Wolfe Tone, the father of Republicanism. The 1916 collection contains personal and unique items from the executed leaders, including personal belongings of Tom Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh, literary works by Joseph Plunkett, letters from Patrick Pearse and Sir Roger Casement as well as vast amounts of unpublished material on the Rising.
The film archive contains the only recorded moving images of historical events in Mayo and elsewhere during the 1950s and 1960s. Hisskill as a cameraman was to a professional standard. He was a witness to events,and recorded and remembered those times which otherwise would have been lost.
Voice Over: Sinéad McCoole:
‘It is hard to encapsulate what is the Jackie Clarke Collection. I think what it is - that it is one of the most wonderful finds of my generation. For someone who is passionate about Irish history, what is wonderful about this is that it is now in public ownership, that is to be house in a library and archive in the west of Ireland, in the North Western corner of the country, giving people access to something local, national and at the same time international. It is truly Ireland’s newest national treasure.’
The Library and Archive shall be an active living centre serving the wider community. Beyond “a keeping place for a collection” or a “store house“, the new Library shall inspire respect and appreciation for a man who dared to imagine beyond his own lifetime.
Honouring its creator and underscoring its immense value,it is essential that this library will be showcased to the highest international standard, enabling its full authority to be explored and examined by scholars and the wider community, and allowing the Library to continue to grow into the future.
The mission of this development is to share one man’s inspirational dedication to a search for knowledge and a documentation of another truth.
This is a gift of identity to future generations. In the words of Jackie Clarke:I want to leave the history of my country unedited for the people to judge.
In an era of rapid globalization and in the wake of the Celtic Tiger, it is timely to be reminded in tangible ways of the formative ideals of the nation, which will once again be the focus of attention and scrutiny as we approach the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016.
Music: Sean O’Riada: Mise Eire
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