Páras An Coláiste Éireannach

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

We have a lot of French translations of Irish writers and the whole point

of this collection is to make contemporary Irish culture

accessible to the Irish in Paris, but also and mostly to the French.

So, for instance, here we have poetry and this anthology...

-Oh, yes.

-..holds a selection of Irish poets from the 20th century.

They have the original texts and their French translation.

For instance, here we have Beckett.

I know this book because in fact I think I had translations of this,

-of Gaelic poets towards the back here.

-Yes, there are a few, yeah.

That was a big exhibition in Paris, yes.

Yes.

HE READS IN IRISH AND FRENCH

And it's great to have that facility to get the Irish language

directly to the French or the Spanish or the Breton

without going through English all the time,

so it's a very good anthology.

And to make it, yeah, accessible for the French public.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Very much so.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

Ah.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

So, this is one of the very few old libraries that still exist today

from all those that you could find in this area of Paris

in all the colleges and monasteries and convents.

They all had their own libraries at the time

at the end of the 18th century. Most of those have been lost or...

Due to the French Revolution?

Yes, but also if they still exist,

they have been put into larger collections.

This one has the privilege of being in its original site.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

This here is a manuscript copy of a letter of patent by Louis XIV.

-Mm-hmm.

-It dates from 1677 and by this letter,

Louis XIV was allowing the Irish community to buy

the College Des Lombards.

It had been established in 1333,

but less and less Italian students had been coming,

so the bursaries from the Lombard College

had been attributed to Irish students instead over the years.

Louis XIV here is confirming that he allows the Irish community

to buy this building and to repair it to be able to move in to it.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

It's the period during which the college goes through

a kind of golden age.

The college had been on very insecure foundations

for much of the 17th century

and it's really only with the establishment

of the College Des Lombards as an Irish institution in the 1670s

that the Irish acquire a secure permanent home in Paris.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

I mean, here we have this, like, sixth-century text,

which turns up in Donegal in an old man's house in the 19th century

and is brought here.

What sort of journeys did the text have between its original, you know,

penning and turning up at the Academy here in the early 19th century?

Well, what we do know is it was taken to the continent

for safekeeping around the 1690s.

It was whisked out of the country

in common with other manuscripts which had been taken out earlier,

like the Book Of Lecan, for example -

that went to the College Des Irlandais in Paris...

-Yes.

-..and came back late in the 18th century.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

This is Andrew Dunleavy's Catechism,

which is printed both in Irish and English

and it was printed here in Paris in 1742.

On the title page, you have both the Irish and the English.

And it's very interesting there that this is the old Gaelic font

that was designed here in Paris,

and we can see also here that this book belonged to a John Lynch

in the early 1800s, so obviously it was very much a working document

and the binding, you know...

It was fairly robust

because it's lasted over half a century in his hands.

Yes, and if we have a look at the pages,

-we have the font here.

-Yes.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

-And this volume is John O'Brien's Irish-English dictionary...

-Oh, yes.

..dating from 1768.

It's the second Irish-English dictionary printed in Paris.

There was a first one printed in 1732,

but we don't have it in our collection.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

Dunleavy's Catechism is a tool

designed to ensure that Irish Catholics retained their faith

in a particularly difficult period.

The dictionaries of the 1730s and the 1760s

equally have, I think, a religious

or a religiously-inspired element to them.

Having said that,

the Irish college in Paris authorities are very conscious,

probably the whole way through the 18th century,

that language is very important.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

When he died, then, the story is that his body was smuggled by night

through Armagh and Tyrone and back to his homeplace,

here at Desertcreat.

His earthly remains have been resting here for almost 300 years.

Well, David, you know, the Bard of Armagh,

it'd be wonderful now if you could give us a little bar of the song.

Oh, I wish I could but I'm allergic to singing.

-As someone said, it brings me out in bruises.

-Yes?

I will play it for you, if you like?

-That'd be fantastic, yes.

-OK, let's do that.

-Go ahead.

So, this is the tune I first heard 40 years ago at school.

-Bold Phelim Brady, the Bard of Armagh.

-That's the one,

that's the one.

MUSIC: The Bard Of Armagh by Patrick Donnelly

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

This letter actually is related to this building.

It's a letter of patent from 1768 by Louis XV,

allowing the Irish community to buy this building.

The letter explains that the Irish community

-made a request to the king to be able to buy a new house...

-Yes.

..in what they call the Quartier De L'Estrapade -

which is the name of this area of Paris -

because of the very poor living conditions

in the College Des Lombards.

They explain here that it was damp, it was too small

and they also complain about bad smells

-because there were apparently several butchers in the street.

-Yes.

That's mentioned here.

The building here at the time was much smaller

and so they bought the building and the grounds around it

and they added two wings, including this one where we are now

with the chapel and the library,

before they were able to move in to the building.

Also, what we see here, they mention the building

on La Rue Du Cheval Vert - the street of the green horse,

-literally.

-Yes.

-It was actually the name of the street here before

and the street changed names in 1807

and it became La Rue Des Irlandais.

-Which is kind of a nice touch really because...

-It was done....

-It enshrines our presence here.

-Exactly.

It was changed following a request by the prefect of the college.

I suppose the green horse had a kind of Irish connection too.

Yeah, maybe somehow, yeah.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH

So, this chapel here was built

when the Irish seminary moved in to the building and so,

-as I said earlier, we have the library just above the chapel.

-Yes.

-Here, you have the French fleur-de-lys...

-Yes.

..and the Irish shamrock

and you have another version of them on those tiles.

It's a kind of, like,

a Hiberno-French identity they're creating here, in some ways.

And we also have a statue of St Patrick

and a portrait of St Bridget.

Yeah, they're two of the main saints.

We'll have to get some Colm Cille in here at some point,

but no... These are the, kind of,

the main male saint and the main female saint of Ireland.

Yes.

HE SPEAKS IN IRISH