Archive for the ages Sunday, November 08, 2009 By Fiona Ness Dublin, 2009. An archive of priceless manuscripts belonging to the Franc is can Order is prised from its resting place in the vaults of the Mícheál O’Cléirigh institute at University College Dublin.
The documents, which trace 1,000 years of Irish history, have spent three centuries secreted in Franciscan monasteries around Europe.
It’s ‘‘real Dan Brown stuff’’, says Fr Caoimhín O’Laoide, the Minister Provincial of the Irish Franciscans and custodian of the unique archive. It documents an Ireland of a different time - covering many of the highlights of Irish history in intricate detail and illustration. But those who are waiting for a Da Vinci Code conspiracy will be disappointed.
‘‘The Dan Brown material seems to trade on a secret group with a secret knowledge, whereas there is no secrecy about this material,” says O’Laoide. ‘‘There’s no ancient medieval library, and no ghostly spectre trying to steal the manuscripts.”
The collection, which consists of thousands of manuscripts, documents and valuable early books, has been in the possession of the Franciscans since the 17th century.
The many highlights in the collection include the only copy of the diary of the 1607 Flight of the Earls by Tadhg O’Cianáin, historian to the Earls. Then there is the Psalter of Caimín, a fragment of a 12th century illuminated manuscript from Co Clare which is contained in the Annals of the Four Masters (a chronicle of Irish history from prehistory to 1616 AD).There are also papers from the Wadding archive, a treasure trove of documents that trace the career of Waterford-born theologian Luke Wadding.
The archive was established by the Franciscans at their college, which was formed by exiled friars in Louvain in Belgium in 1607.
The manuscripts undertook an interesting and sometimes fraught journey around Europe - during Italian reunification in the 19th century, for instance, the archive was smuggled from Rome to London in a British diplomatic bag, before being returned to the Franciscans in Ireland in 1930. The documents are now undergoing conservation, cataloguing and digitisation by the archivists at UCD.
‘‘It’s been part of our history to be custodians of this material. We had to protect it over the centuries,” says Fr O’Laoide, sounding like a Dan Brown character despite himself.
‘‘Even I would have seen very few of the most precious documents. They are kept securely away. People touching the documentation - even exposure to light - would damage them.”
To commemorate 800 years of the Franciscan Order, the collection was last month put on show for a rare viewing by President Mary McAleese. For the rest of us, a selection of the documents are now available for the first time in digitised format, and supported by translations and explanatory notes. The remainder of the collection will go online in the new year.
‘‘When the President came to visit the archive, it was great for me because I was able to see a lot of the material I had previously only seen in digital format,” says Fr O’Laoide.
‘‘Now everyone can go online and see the material in all its glory. You can see parts in such detail that you would never see easily in the original copies.”
Many of the documents in the collection tell the history of an earlier Irish diaspora - exiles in continental Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries whose stories have more recently been overlooked. According to Dr John McCafferty, the director of the UCD institute and curator of the Franciscans’ collection, the documents clearly show the importance of ‘Irishness’ to the people in exile.
‘‘No one thought of Ireland as a unit at that time,” McCafferty says, ‘‘but the Franciscans had the idea that they could make Ireland famous. They invented Irishness.”
McCafferty says that the friars were spurred on by a wish to create the first cogent history of the entire island of Ireland. For example, Franciscan friar Mícheál O’Cléirigh brought historical manuscripts from Ireland to Belgium and created an archive from which he formed the history of Ireland that became The Annals of the Four Masters.
McCafferty cites the Annals as his favourite document in the Franciscan’s archive. ‘‘The friars set out to create a history of Ireland, but in so doing created a series of ideas that has proved to be enduring, one that has informed what it means to be Irish today,” he says.
The stories they collected of early Ireland - for example, of Fionn McCumhaill and the Fianna - are the only link we have between the remote past and the present.
‘‘You can reconstruct earlier histories from their work,” says the historian.
‘‘The early stuff is mythological, but it is often accurate - when new evidence comes to light, such as an archeological find, it turns out the monks were right.”
Today, the friars’ work endures in all sorts of ways - for example, Barack Obama’s city wouldn’t be dyeing the Chicago river green on March 17 if Luke Wadding hadn’t gotten St Patrick’s Day recognised as a universal feast day.
Given the rarity of the collection, it is fortuitous - if not a little numinous - that after centuries of travel, it has made its way home intact. Of immense value when first collated by the monks in Louvain 350 years ago, McCafferty says the collection is now utterly priceless.
‘‘You couldn’t put a price on the documents. Insurance companies can’t value them, so insurance is totally notional. You couldn’t actually sell them.”
Is he not worried that the ancient collection might go astray while at UCD? ‘‘We have them in high security, well locked away - they’re in a bunker,” McCafferty says.
So by that rationale, while the collection is under his care, McCafferty is a notional billionaire?
‘‘It’s true, I’m one of the richest men in Ireland,” he says, smiling. ‘‘Culturally rich, at least.”
It’s a closing line to a tale of which Dan Brow n himself could be proud.
A selection of images from the archive are available for viewing at www.isos.dias.ie. See also www.ucd.ie/mocleirigh
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