Fonds P78 - The Julia Harris Collection

2 items

Donated to the University of Limerick by Julia Harris’s great-grandchildren on 30 November 2007.

Bound hardback volume containing a typescript entitled My Memories, written by Julia Cecilia Harris née Ryan and dedicated to her children and grandchildren, together with a card identifying the names of the memoir’s donors and date of donation. The title page of the volume is dated 17 March 1926 while the last page is dated 19 March 1926. A footnote on p. 8 suggests that the writing of the original manuscript was under way by 1925. In addition, some pages were added as an afterthought in 1927 before the document was bound. Typing is uniform throughout the text, including a much later dedication of January 1945, which reads ‘To Arthur [Arthur James Littledale], from Mummie [Mary Josephine Littledale née Harris] With all my love’. The uniformity of the typescript suggests that the document was typed and bound post 1945. There is also a handwritten dedication on a page preceding the title page ‘For my darling Christopher [Tugendhat], from his devoted Mother, Máire [Tugendhat née Littledale], grand-daughter of the author of these memories. And for his descendants.’ This dedication is dated 29 March 1972 and it is likely that the original manuscript was typed and bound by Máire Tugendhat in that year. The memoir, which narrates Julia Harris’s life events in considerable detail, provides exceptional insights into the life of the prosperous Roman Catholic middle class in Ireland in the second half of the nineteenth century, Ireland’s status as part of the British Empire and the violent events which led to its emergence as an independent nation in the early twentieth century.

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• anglais

Bound volume and paper document in good condition.

Content warning: Parts of the memoir describing life in colonial Africa and India contain language which is considered inappropriate today but is reflective of its time, and which some readers may find offensive.

This description follows guidelines based on ISAD(G) 2nd edition (2000), Irish Guidelines for Archival Description (2009), National Council on Archives: Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names (1997) and EAP Guidance on Data Protection for Archive Services (2018).

Papers arranged and described by Anna-Maria Hajba in February 2023.