Magic Lantern Slides

The magic lantern or Laterna magica was an early image projector, the precursor to modern day slide projectors. Magic lantern slides are made of glass, with the images either hand-drawn or photographic, and illuminated first by candlelight, then kerosene and ultimately electricity. The lanterns were first developed in the 17^th Century for entertainment purposes, and increasingly used for education from the 1800s up until the 1940s. The UCC museum houses an extraordinary collection of magic lantern slides, their beauty and structure allowing a glimpse into times past - times that were almost forgotten until the slides were digitised in 2019 by Dr Lisa Rose Jepson in a project entitled Past Lives, Hidden Treasures: bringing and extinct museum back to life through digitisation.