Patrick Lavelle | College Affairs Editor
Ireland’s part in the Great War will be explored through a series of events at The World War One Roadshow at Trinity College on Saturday. The Roadshow will be hosted by the college in association with RTÉ Radio One and the National Library of Ireland.
The main event of the day will be the Family History Collections Day of World War One memorabilia, which invites members of the public to bring family items, letters and mementos related to the war to be authenticated, catalogued and digitised by a team of experts from the National Library of Ireland and Trinity College. These will be uploaded to an online European archive, Europeana, in time for the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war in 1914. It will be the first European archive of private stories and documents from World War One.
The day will also feature a series of fifteen-minute pop-up talks in the Long Room Hub, as well as more in-depth lectures in the Printing House, exploring the Great War, and Trinity’s unique history during this period. There will be a range of other activities including guided tours and the ‘Last Cricket Match of Peace’. Readings with musical interludes will be performed in the Chapel, charting various scenarios from World War One. Four actors will read from accounts, diary entries and love letters capturing a glimpse of the human side of war. The day will conclude with the final Bugle call of the ‘Last Post’.
Speaking to The University Times, Professor James Wickham said that the Roadshow “forms part of Trinity’s engagement with the Decade of Commemorations”. “The programme will showcase research being conducted in Trinity on this period; it will also remember the over 450 Trinity College graduates who died in the Great War”. Professor Wickham added that this collaborative day with the National Library of Ireland and RTÉ Radio One is part of a wider ambition to improve Trinity’s collaboration with the many cultural institutions in its proximity, which is currently limited. He stressed that the day’s programme is “designed to be interesting and accessible, not targeted at academic historians, but at showing the products of academic research to the wider public”.
The programme of the day’s events can be viewed here.
