Jack Hartnett | Staff Writer
A handmade book exhibition has opened in the Long Room of Trinity College Dublin. Featuring 86 different books, designed by primary school children across Dublin, the exhibition hopes to inspire young people to explore the arts and also to build confidence in their artistic abilities.
The exhibition marks the end of Bookmarks, a three month writing, reading and drawing project which was run in association with the Trinity Access Programme (TAP). 5th and 6th class children from Our Lady of Lourdes National School; Inchicore, Our Lady of Good Counsel Boys’ National School, Drimnagh and St Mary’s Boys’ National School, Haddington Road participated in the programme aimed at encouraging children from traditionally underrepresented communities to advance to third level education.
Centred around the theme of “Hello, Stranger”, the children took part in workshops held with famous author Maura Byrne, who visited Trinity’s Special Collections. The collection of over 10,000 historic children’s books donated to the university by librarian Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard was of special interest to them. With assistance and guidance from Trinity’s School of English and Department of Early Printed Books, the children wrote, illustrated and bound their own individual books, some of which are now on display.
The opening of the exhibition in the Long Room featured an awards ceremony in which each student was presented with a certificate of achievement. The school children thoroughly enjoyed the programme, so much that “many of them requested extra pages so they could write and illustrate even more”, said Kathleen O’Toole-Brennan of Trinity Access Programme. She hopes that someday “these same students and their peers will successfully make the transition to both second and third level.”
The handmade books will be on public display in the Long Room Hub, the Arts and Humanities Research Institute of Trinity College Dublin, until April 10th.
