Pictured at the opening of the Diocese of Ferns archives at St. Peter’s College are George Lawlor, Pat Quilgley, John Carley, Bishop Denis Brennan, Minister Brendan Howlin, Tony Dempsey and Bernard Browne. Pic: Christy Farrell
A HUGE crowd packed into what was once a small chapel at St. Peter’s College for the official launch of the Ferns Diocesan Archive, which has been painstakingly compiled by a group of dedicated volunteers over the past number of years.
Among the vast array of documents, books and items included in the archive, is the Hore Mss collection which was extracted from the original records in the Public Record Office between 1835 and 1900 by Herbert and Philip Hore.
This is a unique record due to the loss of the original records in the Four Courts during the Civil War. This collection has never displayed in public.
The collections constituting the present library are drawn mainly from the stocks of the former House of Missions (founded 1866, its library considered as Bibliotheca major Episcopalis), the former College Seminary, Senior and Junior, and from the books of individual Bishops and clergy.
There is an abundance of volumes on Sacred Scripture, Theology, Liturgy, Church History, Canon Law, Liturgy and Homiletics, most of them pre-dating the Second Vatican Council. The bulk of the material housed in the new premises consists of ecclesiastical, religious and spiritual literature.
The library holds also a large number of volumes on Irish History, literature, culture, art and architecture. Significantly there is a remarkable supply of early printings of theological works from the 1600s and 1700s, all in the Latin language and published on the continent. The oldest volume, a Concordance of the Bible, was published in Lyon in 1530.
Of major interest also will be a few 18th century Dublin publications on religious topics and, in particular, a Dublin printing of the Roman Missal by Catholic publisher Patrick Wogan in 1777.
[Full story in this week’s Echo]
