Mapping Cork: Trade, culture and politics in medieval and early modern Ireland is a new online exhibition curated and overseen by Elaine Harrington, UCC Library’s Special Collections Assistant Librarian and Dr Małgorzata Krasnodębska-D’Aughton, Senior Lecturer, School of History.  

The exhibition has been created by four MA in Medieval History students:  Andrew Neville, Emmanuel Alden, Patrick McKee and David O’Mahony, as part of the Hi6091 module, with an introduction written by Dr Diarmuid Scully, Lecturer in Medieval History, School of History, UCC.  

It was launched on 18th May 2020 as a series of five blog posts published daily on the UCC’s Library River-side portal, http://blogs.ucc.ie/wordpress/theriverside/ 

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. 

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. 

Image caption: 

A page with maps of four Irish towns (Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork) in Civitates orbis terrarum, Cologne, 1618. Special Collections, UCC.