Since its foundation in 1849, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland has stuck to its aims of preserving, examining and illustrating Irish antiquities, writes Eileen Battersby
Even the front door conveys a subtle sense of history. Framed by Portland stone surrounds and leaded glass panels, the wide old door is faded burgundy, dulled by the weather and in need of a fresh coat of paint, yet it remains robust, dignified, slightly defiant in the face of surrounding gentrification and the inevitable commercialisation. No 63 Merrion Square South, completed in 1793, is a house with a story to tell.
Many of the neighbouring buildings on the elegant Georgian square have been gutted and transformed into modern offices. But No 63 is different, a survivor from another time, oblivious to the shiny new cars parked on the street outside and conscious of its function. Home to the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, which purchased the building in 1916 and moved here early the following year, the building possesses an atmosphere that epitomises scholarship and learning at its most welcoming and least competitive.
To enter No 63 is to bypass officialdom and step instead into the world of the 19th century. Mounted high on the wall of the entrance hall is a set of antlers belonging to a Giant Irish Deer, a possible relic of the late Ice Age. The floor is Portland stone and the smell of the interior is unmistakable - old books and papers. To the rear of the building, beyond a charmingly old-fashioned town garden, stands the old lofted double coach house and stables. The ghosts of long-dead horses linger. It is a treasure trove of Irish social history and the society's current president, archaeologist Conleth Manning, is collaborating with The Irish Landmark Trust in conserving this stable mews property.
Manning, a medievalist with a particular interest in church and castle architecture, is a senior archaeologist in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Kilkenny is his native county and it drew him to archaeology.
During his four years as an active president he has also looked to the ongoing conservation of the main house and has already had the original Georgian sash windows refurbished. Other projects include the indexing of the society's journal, while archaeologist Christiaan Corlett is cataloguing the extensive photographic archive of lantern slides, negatives and photographic prints. A large upstairs room, which, in a previous era, would have functioned as a drawingroom or saloon and was formerly the society's council room, presents a wonderful sight - a daunting work-in-progress chaos of old books, bound journals, papers, cases of photographs and other material waiting to be arranged.
There is no formal academic entry requirement; anyone with an interest in archaeology or history can join its current 1,000-strong membership, use the library, attend lectures, offer papers for publication and participate in the various excursions such as the recent field trip to York.
Born of a great tradition, that of inspired amateur scholarship, the society is also custodian of that pioneering fascination with antiquities that was so central to the 19th-century Irish mind; a largely Protestant mind that concerned itself with archaeology, early history, architecture, the natural sciences and folklore - the past in general as the defining bedrock of culture. Known as the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland since 1890 - the society underwent four name changes en route to its present title - the society came into being courtesy of that most valuable of pursuits, the study of local history.
As any professional archaeologist will agree, the gentleman or amateur local historian and archaeologist has always played a vital role in preserving traditions and in piecing together the story of the past. In a characteristically insightful essay, "The Decay of Archaeology" (1963) Hubert Butler offered a barbed, if prophetically accurate opinion, when writing: "It may sound ungenerous to say so, but the salaried expert cannot afford to be as strenuous a defender of our antiquities and our right to free speculation as the amateurs of a hundred years ago. Archaeology, by becoming a profession out of which you support a family and/or an academic reputation, often becomes very timorous and self-important." What would he, ever a critic of state care of heritage, say today?
Founded on February 19th, 1849, at a meeting in Kilkenny, a city and county rich in heritage - particularly medieval buildings such as the castle and, of course, Rothe House - as The Kilkenny Archaeological Society, it was the culmination of a group of eight like-minded individuals united by a shared interest. The driving forces were the Rev James Graves, then a curate at St Patrick's, Kilkenny, and his journalist cousin, John Prim of the Kilkenny Moderator.
Within 20 years, this local society became the principal antiquarian society for the whole of Ireland. But before that, within mere months of being founded, it had its own museum and library and, by the close of 1849, a membership of 149. Its aims were impressive: "to preserve, examine and illustrate all Ancient Monuments and memorials of the Arts, Manners and Customs of the past, as connected with the Antiquities, Language, Literature and History of Ireland". Lady Harriet Kavanagh, who donated her Egyptian collection to the society, joined in 1850, as did John Windele, the Cork antiquary. Euseby Cleaver of Christ Church Oxford and the Earl of Dunraven were also members. William Wilde signed up the following year.
By 1854, such was the widening nature of the membership that it was decided to change its name to that of The Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society. Prince Albert was elected a Life member in 1855.
Practicality was always part of its ethos. In 1847, two years before its inception, both Graves and Prim and another founder member and the society's first president, Charles Vignoles, the Dean of Ossory, had worked together on the excavation of the base of the round tower at St Canice's Cathedral. They were aware of the removal of the remains of the city wall, a pattern that began in the early 19th century and continued. These were not easy-going enthusiasts: they had an agenda - the protection and preservation of their heritage.
In an article published in the society's journal in 1982, archivist Aideen Ireland looks to various developments which might have influenced the formation of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society and cites the establishment of the Belfast Natural History (and Philosophical) society in 1821. The British Archaeological Society came into being in 1844 and there appears to have been a healthy interchange of ideas between antiquarians in Ireland and Britain at that time.
There is no doubt that there was much intellectual activity and the mood must have been similar to that which had led to the founding of the Royal Irish Academy in the previous century. A defining factor would also have been the arrival of the Ordnance Survey in 1824 and the heightened interest the survey stimulated in the origins of placenames. This was the age of giants such as Petrie and Wilde while in the 1850s Kilkenny was, as the always astute Hubert Butler wrote, "a great centre of Irish and British archaeology. A museum and library was opened in Butler House, the Ormonde dower house in Patrick Street . . . Many donations came from the Ormonde family, the castle and its muniments room was always at the disposal of local scholars."
Lord Ormonde, the second marquis, was one of the first patrons of the society, whose presidents included remarkable individuals such as Thomas Westropp, R.A.S. Macalister, Eoin MacNeill, architect Harold Leask, Liam Price, SeáP. O'Ríordáin, the polymath Frank Mitchell who once lived in the two top floors of the house, and others. One of the three women presidents, Helen Roe, an authority on high crosses, left a bequest that funded the creation of the society's lecture theatre in the basement.
The society and its activities are funded by the membership. Manning is pleased to report the increasing number of younger antiquarians involved. It is a society with a glorious past, a project-driven present and a definite future.
"Preserve, Examine, Illustrate" were the society's presiding aims and they have remained so. The name did change, not as a way of reinventing itself, but more of its desire for accuracy. As the society grew, so did its scale. As Butler writes: "Yet the amateurs were pugnacious and confident and the Kilkenny Archaeological Society grew famous." It was this fame and effectiveness - such as its pioneering reconstruction, during the 1860s, of the Nun's Church at Clonmacnoise and other monuments at the site, as well as its earlier work at Jerpoint Abbey - that caused the name to be reassessed.
Within 14 years of becoming The Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, it became The Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland and in 1868 the word "Royal" was added. Prim died in 1875; Graves survived illness, during which the society was suspended, resuming activity with his return to health. He lived until 1886.
By then it was becoming obvious that the society could no longer remain based in Kilkenny. As Hubert Butler records, the Kilkenny Society was killed by its own success. "As more and more members poured in from all over Ireland, it was inevitable that they should begin to think on a national scale." In 1890, the present title was finally arrived at when the society, by then a truly national institution, had begun the process of transferring to Dublin where it settled in 1900 with a peak membership of 1,370.
At that time, the society's museum collection was divided between the Kilkenny Museum and that of the Royal Irish Academy. Butler, always an advocate of the local society, revived the Kilkenny Archaeological Society in 1945. Based in Rothe House, it continues to this day, as does its earlier self, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.