10th April: Dr. Sarah Comyn (UCD) ‘Every Station Open to All’? Mechanics’ Institutes on the Victorian Goldfields

When: Wednesday 10th April, 5-7pm During his speech at the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute’s soirée in 1862, Richard Heales (M.L.A) captured the sense of the mechanics’ institute as a symbol of home when he argued that ‘nothing bound us to the old country like its institutions, and what would bind us to the new country [but] … Continue reading “10th April: Dr. Sarah Comyn (UCD) ‘Every Station Open to All’? Mechanics’ Institutes on the Victorian Goldfields”

16 April: Fashioning the Victorians: The Crinoline with Dr Rebecca Mitchell

From corsets to crinolines, dandies to decadent ‘New Women’, fashions during the Victorian age were changing as fast as a steam locomotive. Silhouettes and styles transformed radically every decade, influenced by the social, cultural and political forces of this era. Using a wide range of 19th-century images and primary source materials, Rebecca N. Mitchell discusses … Continue reading “16 April: Fashioning the Victorians: The Crinoline with Dr Rebecca Mitchell”

9 May: Tutankhamun: Facts, Fictions and the Mummy’s Curse with Dr Eleanor Dobson

The discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922 is one of the best-known archaeological narratives of the modern age. The uncovering of the pharaoh’s final resting place with its wealth of gilded artefacts was cause for much celebration both in Egypt and abroad. But within weeks of the king’s burial chamber … Continue reading “9 May: Tutankhamun: Facts, Fictions and the Mummy’s Curse with Dr Eleanor Dobson”