Trinity and Google collaborate to launch Dublin Rising 1916-2016 exhibition online

Dublin Rising 1916-2016 is an interactive tour of Dublin, narrated by actor Colin Farrell

NEWSA collection of rare and previously unpublished material related to the 1916 Rising and held in Trinity College Dublin Library will now be accessible online thanks to a recent collaboration between the Library and the Google Cultural Institute.

The Google Cultural Institute partners with museums, art galleries and archives in order to digitally preserve precious cultural artefacts and simultaneously make them available to the public online.

Dublin Rising 1916-2016 is an interactive tour of Dublin, narrated by actor Colin Farrell, and making use of Google Street View to contrast images of modern Dublin and the city streets of 1916. The National Library of Ireland, the Royal Irish Academy, the Abbey Theatre and Glasnevin Cemetery also contributed significantly to the project.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD and the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys TD launched the exhibition in partnership with Ireland 2016. Mr Kenny has praised the “unique online experience,” saying that the collaboration is “enabling all the people of Ireland, the diaspora and others around the world to commemorate, learn about and explore the events of 1916 and the 100 years since then and to celebrate the country we are today.”

The Library of Trinity College Dublin, as part of this project, will also be exhibiting photographs taken by Thomas Johnson Westropp, archaeologist and antiquarian, in the fallout of the Easter Rising. The 44 images were taken in the rubble of central Dublin, in the weeks following the violence, and gifted by Mr Westropp to the college. They will be available to view in “larger than life-size,” so that miniscule details and features can be observed, and will include shots of the interior of the GPO, and shots taken from the vantage points of Nelson’s Pillar.

In a College press release, Helen Shenton, Trinity Librarian and College Archivist, said: “Very early on, the Library decided that one of the best ways to commemorate the Rising was to find ways to share these heritage materials with anyone who wanted to see them. That’s what great Libraries do − mind and share national memory and that’s what we are doing today.”