Annals Workshops

Send up to 20 event items from the past for possible inclusion in Gap Annal. Each included item is acknowledged in the Annal itself e.g. de reir Mary Murphy etc. This suits a school or university history class project. Ideally choose event items pertinent to your location or important to your group or its individuals' backgrounds. 15% off half & full day group visit if this gift chosen.

€200 

Half day visit to Bru Moytura Scriptorium with ink and paper making  classes for up to 25 people. Opportunity for group to discuss and input suggestions for Gap & Ongoing Annal. Suits class or family name group or small tours. Weekdays only. 
€500 

Full day visit to Bru Moytura Scriptorium with lunch + ink and paper making & calligraphy classes for up to 25 people. Opportunity for group to discuss and input suggestions for Gap & Ongoing Annal. Suits class or family name group or small tours. Weekdays only. 
€1,550

Half Day

1. A tour group gets Annals INTRO +VIDEO – light shone on these important yet obscure part of Irish history.
2. SEE Ongoing Annal being written and how new info gets to be inputted. Each visitor is given a piece of paper to write twitter length NEWS that they think pertinent, perhaps one of which may enter the actual Annal.
3. INPUT IN THE INCIDENT ROOM – the Gap Annal (filling the gap from 1590 to 2020) gets the visitors’ inspirations, a lively animated part of the theatrical aspect of the experience; involves argument, weighing up facts etc.
4. “Do you Copy” the extant Annals reach from 425AD till last item written in The Annals of Lough Key in 1590AD. Copy a sample page from the remaining e.g. in Latin & Irish: Annals of Tigernach/ Ulster/ Lecan/Inishfallen/Roscrea/ Boyle/ Lough Key/ Fragmentary Annals/ in English The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Pricing/ Booking:

Half Day for up to 25 people Get history of Annals / SEE video and slide show. Group is divided into 3 teams and an explanation of the shape of their coming hours/ day at the “Scriptorium” is made clear. Input suggestions with discussion to Ongoing & Gap Annal. 

Full Day

1. Lunch / elevenses / afternoon tea 
2. Ink making workshop: hands on + learning ancient methods. What lasts, what fades.
3. Papermaking: hands on paper making for paper that you can take with you plus be making paper for the Annals we are anyway creating. Entry ticket for full day includes A0 parchment that participants can copy an extant Annal folio page on to. 

Full Day for up to 25 people. Above + Ink / Paper and Calligraphy classes. Groups get the tour, wholesome lunch, their scribe page that they calligraphed themselves in natty cardboard tube and their docket of “News” has a chance to get immortality in the Annals.           

We are open to umbrella a Concession rate so none will be prevented a great day out.

As a not-for-profit we are seeking means to subsidise a Concession rate.

Ongoing, Gap-filling & Extant Annals

ZONE 1: ON-GOING ANNAL

The upper room is the “Newsroom” of the Scriptorium. Just beneath it is where the ongoing Chronicle sits on a round shelf . This is the place of the On-going Chronicle where page after page, the Annal comes to pass. This eerie, done up as a lookout is a busy space where the sifting of info arriving is done. As chaff can be stranger than wheat, all the facts of national or tiny import are sifted here. The latest page of the Annal can be viewed, on its plinth, inspired by other groups who have visited.



Resident Guide describes in short details items not expounded in the video. There will be some back ground Q&A about how the current Annal is being formed and how well or badly it is being written / wrought. Is it slanted/ biased, neutral, fake, obscure or obvious etc. ? A challenge is posited; the visitors are given small “dockets” to keep – before they depart they should write an item of News that they believe worthy of entry into the Annal from their locality or country. It may or may not get inked to parchment. 

ZONE 2: GAP ANNAL

GAP ANNAL between the last extant Annal to the Ongloing Annal 1590AD-2019AD. The Zone of this endeavour is Nicknamed “The Incident Room.” The room is dominated by a blank wall soon to become the investigation wall of clues, of strings linking facts and persons and parishes. This place is for piecing together the ANNALS GAP years, all 430 of them.  Any pertinent facts related to the year’s “case” will be proffered by the Guide but the group’s leader or teacher will know in advance of their visit the year they are to delve e.g they have chosen 1616, 1753, 1847 etc. This exercise if shaped properly can actually shape the actual information that enters the Gap Annal for a particular year. 

Opportunity for secondary school students/ 3^rd level/ a clan or diaspora group to get into the nitty gritty parts of history. What facts should be sought ? Which ones should get parchment space for posterity. How to describe a given event / what tone to take. How much vision versus how much revisionism, weighing lies, cover-ups, break-thrus, etc. Who are the heroes or villains ? Where are the women ? Where are minorities in the story?



It is imagined that other examples of other completed years are on the wall as it expands.

ZONE 3: THE COPY ZONE

The COPY ZONE, takes inspiration from St. Columba, who purportedly, famously copied without permission the existing Annal in the 550s, the case of the To Every Cow its Calf – To every Book its Copy etc. (the Irish word used derives from ‘little book’ = leabhrãn). Here we make the facsimiles, some might say “forgeries.” We use tracing and stencils (for the younger students ) or some freehand after some lessons to create on A0 size parchment copies of the extant annals page by page with swishing goose quills for more advanced students.   The best folio copy will go into the completed Annal. 

7 to 10 visitors are put to the task of copying a single particular page – the best is chosen to be installed into De Reir Book of Moytura, as we in the 430 year gap. The others can take their work home – in gift cardboard tubing. The result a slow accumulation of the most consistent continuum of Annals possible. This activity happens year on year about the circumference of the Hall in the 9 scribe desks. 

ZONE 4: INK & PIGMENT MAKING

A room where the visitors connect in with a “Master Inker” to make their pigments and learn the background etc. In medieval times black ink was made from rare oak galls.

ZONE 4: PAPER PARCHMENT MAKING

 Same paper that is being used in the Copy and On-going Annal zone, A0 sized. Show how it is made, from locally grown material. Flax, pulverised rushes mixed with old dissolved news-paper.