How To
Twitter is a key means of communication for Gothic Past. To find out more check out tweets by Caroline M. McGee
The Gothic Past visual archive of Irish architecture and sculpture may be explored in a number of ways, either as a visitor or you may sign up as a registered user
Registered users may avail of a free-to-use, personally-assigned workspace within the site: MyGothicPast. In this area registered users are able to tag and save images. Pre-tagged images may then be used to create themed presentations for research or private study eg genealogical research. If you are teaching a medieval history course you may use this facility to set teaching assignments for your students. (They will need to register on the site first.)
Registered and logged in users may access their workspace by clicking on their login name in the top right-hand corner of any page. You will then be brought into your personal workspace. It is called My Dashboard. From here you may browse the collections, tag and annotate images for study or for making presentations. These presentations may be shared with non-registered users of the site. They could, for example, be used to support the teaching of a particular module of history eg The Normans in Ireland. Presentations could therefore be tailored for the teaching of primary, post-primary or university level courses.
In time there will be an option for registered users to contribute their own images to the archive. By enabling and encouraging active engagement with the site content in this way, the Gothic Past website development team seek to create a dynamic interface that will benefit research-enabled teaching and private study of Ireland's medieval heritage for both registered users and visitors to the Gothic Past site.
The Gothic Past site contains archives of images from the Stalley Collection and the Rae Collection of medieval Irish art and architecture and the O'Donovan Moulding Profiles Collection.
The site also features interconnecting multi-media exhibits that are derived from these collections. These exhibits are: Architectural Colonisation in Anglo-Norman Munster, Edwin Rae and Irish Tomb Sculpture, and The Late Gothic Mouldings of County Clare. More exhibits will be added at intervals.
Each exhibit is made up of a number of sections:
- St. Patrick's Cathedral, Cashel
- Edwin Rae's Images of Irish Late Gothic Tombs
- An Introduction to Clare Mouldings
Within each of these sections you will find a range of materials. They include photographs, drawings of mouldings, as well as a selection of multimedia and academic texts. (Flash may be required for some files.) Clicking on an still image will launch a lightbox viewer. Entries with multiple images will display a mini-slideshow. An interactive map may be accessed from the home page. This map includes links to the materials in the Gothic Past archive.
All users
You may go through the Exhibits section by section
You may browse through the digital Collections and Archive by clicking on those buttons on the top menu bar.
You may search for material using the Search box at the top of the screen
You may also browse the archives by selecting images based on:
- A geographical location - each entry is geotagged and displayed on a map, which will show the ten location tags for entries on a given page.
- By going directly to an individual record of a named site
- By keyword search of a particular item eg gothic, capital etc
- By selecting from tags in the right-hand side bar eg County Kilkenny, Dominican architecture etc
- By examining a particular Collection
- By exploring the themed Exhibits of particular monuments or architectural features. These exhibitions are accompanied by explanatory texts and short video clips.
- NB Some entries are for images under copyright to other institutions. You may view a thumbnail of the item by clicking on the URL to TARA (Trinity's Access to Research Archive). This is located in the 'Collector' field of each entry. The institutional affiliation will be available here eg Shrine of St.Patrick's Tooth http://gothicpast.com/items/show/3343 (TARA URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2262/10845) The original artefact is part of the collections of the National Museum of Ireland and may be accessed on their Flickr feed http://www.flickr.com/photos/11061732@N07/6154269963/
Images may be downloaded and used (with attribution) for research, teaching or private study. They may not be used for commercial purposes without permission. Permission for commercial use will only be considered on completion of a Rights and Reproductions form accessible from each individual entry.
In constructing the Gothic Past project website, we endeavoured to create a resource that could be used for research purposes as well as a teaching and learning tool. We hope you enjoy using the site and we welcome your feedback via the contact form provided.