Open the Archives Intro: Abbey Theatre Posters

Welcome to the fourth iteration of #OpentheArchives! Meet Niamh O’Donnell, who spent last summer at the Museum during her MPhil in Public History & Cultural Heritage at Trinity College Dublin. She explored the Museum’s archive of Abbey Theatre posters in conjunction with the ‘Poster Boys’ exhibition, still open until the end of April. Read more about her project below, and keep an eye on our News or Archive page in the coming days for the latest posts.

‘During my internship with the National Print Museum, I had the fantastic opportunity to highlight interesting material that is not already on display to the general public. My Open the Archives project seeks to expand on an exhibition in the museum called ‘Poster Boys.’ The exhibition allows the public to engage with posters from the 1970s and 1980s advertising Abbey Theatre productions. It is my hope that this Open the Archives project can bring some of the posters that did not make it into the exhibition to light as well providing further historical detail to some posters within the exhibition. I have always been passionate about how fictional mediums can help us to understand history and culture in an engaging and interactive way. Therefore, I chose to highlight posters that reflect aspects of Irish history and culture to show how people can engage with these ideas through the medium of theatre. I have chosen Brian Friel’s Translations, Seán O’Casey’s The Shadow of a Gunman and The Plough and the Stars, as well as Denis Johnston’s The Moon in the Yellow River.’