Chester Beatty

Join Chester Beatty tour guide, Tom O’Regan for an illustrated talk exploring some of the highlights and stories from the collection. Discover the origins of the museum, while learning about some of the fascinating treasures held in our extensive collection.
🎟️FREE, booking required here: https://ow.ly/s46z50ZSgUZ

In collaboration with Dublin City Libraries; this workshop is taking place in Charleville Mall Library.

Join us for qigong in the heart of Mountjoy Square. This ancient Chinese outdoors practice, invites you to breathe, move and unwind in one of Dublin’s most beautiful Georgian parks. Perfect for complete beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, qigong is a wonderfully gentle way to reduce stress, improve balance and reconnect with yourself.

🎟️Limited to 30 participants. FREE, no booking required.
In collaboration with Dublin City Council Parks Department; this qigong is taking place in Mountjoy Square Park.

‘Leave no Trace’ Policy, plus tips and tricks:
• Please bring a reusable water bottle and take all your belongings with you when the activity has finished.
• Please be mindful not to step on any plants or flower beds.
• We recommend wearing comfortable shoes and clothing.
• Please apply sunscreen and bring an umbrella or raincoat as appropriate for the weather.

Calling all young architects! Join us for Open House Dublin 2026!

- Building Adventure: Design and build structures. Start with a simple cube, and turn it into something entirely your own – how many doors will you add? How many windows? What colour will it have? Every choice is yours to make.
🎟️Limited to 20 children aged 6-11, and their parents or guardians. FREE. More info and booking: https://ow.ly/Xp2s50ZRv94

- The Art of Georgian Doors: Bold colours, ornate fanlights, and intricate ironwork, each of Dublin’s Georgian doors is a little different from the next. This workshop invites teens to take a closer look at what makes them so iconic, and to think about what architecture can say about a place, its history, and the people who’ve lived there. Using these details as inspiration, you’ll design and illustrate your own postcard – a personal take on Dublin’s Georgian streetscape, reimagined however you like.
🎟️Limited to 15 teens, aged 12 – 17 years. FREE. More info and booking: https://ow.ly/5sAi50ZRv9E

Irish Architecture Foundation

Learn drawing techniques inspired by our Western, Eastern and Islamic collections. These creative and relaxed sessions are open to teens and adults of all abilities.

🎟️FREE, no booking required, available for the first 20 participants.
In collaboration with Dublin City Libraries; this talk is taking place in Inchicore Library.

As the Harvest Moon rises on 26th September, it's the perfect night to slow down, reflect, and ask a question or two. 🌕✨

Our new oracle and divination decks make lovely companions for the season, from the Goddess Power Oracle and Wisdom of the Oracle, to The Healing Mantra Deck. Each comes as a 52-card deck with guidebook, ideal for daily reflection or a moment of quiet under the moonlight.

Available now in the Chester Beatty online shop. 🌙🔮
https://shop.chesterbeatty.ie/category/gifts/

Just some parts of the Chester Beatty collection which date back to the 9th century CE - that's as many as 1,200 years ago 💅

Want to know what it would be like to walk into an archive and discover a lost treasure this old? Book your place at our talk 'On Finding a New Copy of the Oldest English Poem', at 1pm on Friday 2 October. You'll hear from Trinity College Dublin's Dr Mark Faulkner and Dr Elisabetta Magnanti, who went viral earlier this year for doing just that 🤯

Tickets €6.50, or €5 for Next Gen (18-30s). This talk will take place at Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again on Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2, in association with the Friends of the Chester Beatty ❤️

Images:

CBL Cpt 819.3a.1, one of just three pages surviving from a Sahidic Coptic manuscript containing a Christian text, the Canons of St. Basil. The canons are a collection of rules relating to church discipline, and Coptic is a language which developed in Egypt after the 3rd century CE 📜

CBL Is Pp6, Papyrus bifolio with Arabic text from a Ḥadīth manuscript dated 267H (880-881 CE).
Compiled by Khayr, under supervision from his teacher Khālid ibn Yazīd 🖋️

CBL Is Is 1406, illuminated folio from a Qur'an showing an eight-pointed star on a lightly-drawn backdrop of palmette-leaf trellis, with hasp ornament in the margin. That beautiful illumination is all real gold ✨

Ever wondered what it's like to discover a lost manuscript? Wonder no more - Dr Mark Faulkner and Dr Elisabetta Magnanti, who recently did just that, will be giving a talk on their experiences on Friday 2 October!

Join us for a lunchtime talk exploring the oldest English poem, how a previously unknown 9th century version survived in Italy, and what it's like when your academic research ends up in People alongside the celebrity news of the day.

This event is part of the Chester Beatty Friends programme, and will take place at the Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again exhibition centre on Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2. Tickets €6.50, or €5 for Next Gen (18-30). Visit our website for booking!



Collection image: Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma

Seven West African manuscripts sit quietly within the large Arabic manuscript collection at the Chester Beatty. Though tiny in number, this micro-collection has great potential to illuminate the underrepresented sub-Saharan manuscript tradition within a globally renowned repository. This talk will bring these artefacts together into the same frame so their stories can be heard: the hands that crafted them, the folios that held not only the ink but also markings and many other details, and the paths that moved them across time and space. Part of Dr Trad’s current research project at Chester Beatty, these stories will underline the richness, peculiarity, and diversity of the West African manuscript cultures.

This talk is organised to mark Dublin Festival of History. In collaboration with National Library of Ireland; this talk is taking place in the National Library’s Lecture Theatre.
More information: https://ow.ly/Ipsg50ZObL6

🎟️FREE Hybrid Talk
📍Onsite: Lecture Theatre, National Library of Ireland. No booking required
💻Online: Please register for online viewing via Zoom here: https://ow.ly/Ipsg50ZObL6

Some fashion from the Chester Beatty archives 👗

Published in the French fashion magazine Journal des dames et de modes in September 1912, this is a design for a white crepe embroidered and painted sheath dress. It's been paired with an emerald-green floral velvet blouse, also embroidered, as well as a cinching beaded belt, a patterned yellow hair covering and green shoes. A slit in the skirt is marked out by buttons.

Journal des dames et des modes featured multiple contributors in each issue. This one is signed by its designer, Charles Martin - you can see his signature in the upper left corner.

What do you think - if you came across these pieces, how would you style them?

Images: CBL Wep 0811, Sheath dress, from issue 11 of Journal de dames et de modes. Copper plate engraving and pochoir (stencil) on paper, designed Charles Martin and published by Tom Antongini. 10 September 1912, Paris, France.