How the Great Book of Ireland ended up at UCC

The Cork college paid $1m for the incredible collection of original pieces from the likes of Beckett, Le Brocquy, Bono and others

John Fitzgerald of UCC. 

In the mid 1970s, the poet Theo Dorgan used to work in London during summers to pay for his university studies. In his spare time, he trawled the city’s museums. The sight of the original handwriting of great poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge – full of personality and energy almost two centuries on – always stayed with him.

In 1989, while working as director of Poetry Ireland, the memory of the Lake Poets’ handwriting was the seed for a plan Dorgan cooked up with Gene Lambert of Clashganna Mills. Why not round up the country’s finest poets and artists to create a Great Book of Ireland, a kind of modern-day version of the Book of Kells?