On a first job in the archives of University College Cork - for Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to A Letter From Bradford, by Virginia Teehan above.
My first real job was as college archivist at University College Cork. During my time at Cork I made some progress into sorting out almost 150 years of history, stored in basement strongrooms underneath UCC's picturesque quandrangle.
These dark, dank strongrooms were filled, from floor to ceiling, with papers, photographs, bound volumes, paintings, artefacts - all the ephemera of academic life. The university's heritage was crammed into these damp rooms.
There is a particular black dust unique to such stores, it's like a very fine coal dust; for me that dust is magical..."
This was from a special programme from the recent archive to mark National Heritage Week; for more from Sunday Miscellany, click here, and for full details of Heritage Week events around the country click here.
