Sunday, November 04, 2012

Servites' library of rare manuscripts saved by lottery grant

The UK National Lottery is to fund the preservation of a rare archive of religious manuscripts and books at a priory in Benburb in County Tyrone.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) that uses a portion of lottery profits for heritage projects has approved a grant of £773,000 for the Servite Priory library, which houses a collection of around 20,000 manuscripts, books and archive material.  

Material in the archive goes back as far as the sixteenth century and includes documents written by St Augustine and the grant will secure its preservation for future generations.

£83,000 of the grant is earmarked for enabling the little-known library and archive to be opened up to a wider audience.

Archive material about the Irish Servite and Marian congregations are the core of the collection but it also contains what the HLF describes as, “excellent Irish literature and general religious collections.”  

The library also contains extensive archival material relating to the Servites over the past 150 years, including personal records of 300 friars.

Some of the books have come to Benburb from Florence, Vicenza and Innsbruck and when Servite Friars opened a base in London in 1864 several volumes were brought there for safekeeping during the time of Italian reunification.

The order’s Benburb priory was founded by American friars in the 1940s, who ensured it had an excellent student library.  

In 2000, when the congregation’s Irish and English provinces were amalgamated, a large number of books were brought to Benburb from English Servite Priories that significantly expanded and enriched its collection.

The Lottery-backed project will see the restoration and preservation of the collection that is currently at risk of further deterioration as it is currently spread over five disjointed sites within the Priory.  

The collection will now be relocated to a Victorian stables building which will be refurbished to meet proper conservation requirements for library material and create a space for people to view and access it.

It is hoped that it will then be put to broader educational purposes and be exposed to a wider range of people.

Mr Paul Mullan, who is head of the Heritage Lottery Fund Northern Ireland, said they accorded the care of the Servite Library collection a high priority.  

“We are delighted to be able to give the project the necessary support to further develop their plans to secure funding,” he said.

“This is an incredibly valuable collection, and the outlined plan will provide the proper care and public access to an absorbing historical collection.”

Fr. Chris O’Brien OSM of the Servite Trust welcomed the announcement and said the order sees it as, “a major step forward in the restoration of the stable block at the Priory and preservation of the Servite Heritage of historical books and archives.”

Professor Gerry McKenna, chairman of the Servite Library Project Board, said it is, “excellent news for the Servite Priory and for Benburb and the surrounding area. It will allow a heritage treasure to be preserved, developed and made accessible to a wide variety of interest groups from throughout Northern Ireland and beyond,” he said. 

“The associated restoration of the Stables area will also provide a focal point for the many and varied groups associated with the Priory to meet, browse and commune in a conducive setting.”

The HLF is the largest dedicated funder of the UK’s heritage, with a budget of £375m a year and since 1994 it has given £148.5m to over a thousand projects in Northern Ireland.  

The Heritage Lottery Fund is administered by the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) that was given the responsibility of distributing a share of money raised through the National Lottery for Good Causes, to heritage across the UK.