What is Ephemera?

The word "ephemera" is the plural form of the Greek word ephemeron meaning on or about a day. Ephemera includes junk mail, election material, receipts, railway tickets, newspapers, posters, labels, telephone directories etc. most of which is discarded immediately and forgotten and only a small portion survives long enough to become an important tool in studying the past.

Not many people in Ireland value ephemera and even fewer collect it. Apart from some exceptions - the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, the National Library in Dublin, Ireland does not have many public ephemera collections. A search of the internet will bring little joy. Yet large public collections do exist in England, in Europe and in America, and there is even a Centre for Ephemera Studies at the University of Reading!

While there are a number of groups in Ireland that accumulate ephemeral material as part of their collecting, the nearest society specifically devoted to the subject is in the UK. The Ephemera Society is a non-profit body concerned with the collection, preservation, study and educational uses of hand-written and printed ephemera. It has many Irish enthusiasts amongst its members. The Ephemera Society website is on this link: The Ephemera Society Website and their email is: info@ephemera-society.org.uk

Posters by Thomas Morahan of Strokestown.

Maurice Rickards was an expert in this area up to his death in 1998. His collection forms the basis of the Reading archive and from this collection comes the best source of information on ephemera from this part of the world that we are aware of. "The Encyclopaedia of Ephemera - a guide to the fragmentary documents of everyday life for the collector, curator and historian" by Maurice Rickards, edited and completed by Michael Twyman. The British Library. 2001. (ISBN 0 7123 4679 1) (right) is a must for anyone with any interest in the subject.

The nearest thing to an Irish account of ephemera is Toby Barnard's "A Guide to Sources for the History of Material Culture in Ireland 1500 - 2000" Maynooth Research Guides For Irish Local History: No. 10. Four Courts Press. 2005. (ISBN 1 85182 951 2)(left). Though concentrating primarily on "physical goods" like furniture and kitchen ware, it does stress the importance of  advertising, including billheads, and mentions other documents like wills, directories etc. In 2009 An Post (the Irish Post Office) published "Robbery on the Road" (right) a catalogue of Post Office Reward Notices from 1820 to 1870.

(We also noted in the Bibliography "Early Irish trade-cards & other eighteenth-century ephemera" by D. Fitzgerald, Knight of Glin, in "Eighteenth Century Ireland" ii, (1987)pp. 115 - 132).

Ephemera is also to be found in the pages of the Journal of the Irish Society for Archives (left). The Society was founded in 1970 and has published a magazine since. This issue is Winter 2009 - vol 16.

More details www.ucd.ie/archives/isa/isa-index.html

Another interesting publication on the subject is "The Design and Printing of Ephemera in Britain and America 1720 - 1920" by Graham Hudson. The British Library : Oak Knoll Press. 2008. (ISBN 978 0 7123 4904 8) (right) which covers a large range of materials, including a few from Belfast.

Apart from the field of medals & militaria and AK's fabulous Political Ephemera blog, we are not aware of any other site in Ireland, apart from this one, that is dedicated to ephemera! (Please tell us if there is?) This site is essentially a (partial) catalogue of our collection, but it also offers a broad range of examples of some of the types of material which are described as ephemera. We have also written a little on the subject. Our essays appear in "Roscommon Life" the annual publication of the Roscommon Association, Dublin.

Students of Media Studies, Marketing or Journalism, or those studying Art & Design, might also find the site useful.

(Above Left & Centre) From "Roscommon Life 2005 - 2006". (Above Right) Nineteenth century Business Card.

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