Tuesday 21 May 2013

Plantation exhibition opens in Derry in June

An exhibition entitled Plantation: Process, People, Perspectives will be opening next month in Derry's Guildhall. It will examine the planning that went into the Plantation and how people were effected by it, as well as its continuing legacy. It will also mark the re-opening of the city's glorious sandstone Guildhall after a £3million restoration project.

Making the announcement on the Great Parchment Book blog, Bernadette Walsh, Archivist at Derry City Council’s Heritage and Museum’s Service, says that the exhibition will showcase a fantastic collection of maps, drawings and other items that have been loaned by other institutions in the UK and Ireland. There's more here.

Bernadette told me a few weeks ago that some samples from the Great Parchment Book, which is still being conserved and digitised, are expected to be included in the exhibition. The Great Parchment Book is a major survey, compiled in 1639, of all the lands in County Derry/Londonderry seized by the Crown; it includes names, placenames and details of rentals and contracts, and has been described as the Domesday Book of Derry.

The exhibition (and the restored Guildhall) will be open to the public from Monday 10 June.