Exhibit of Children's Books in the Irish Language presented by Boston Public Library in March, 1989

In March, 1989, the Boston Public Library's presented a month long exhibit entitled, Turas Go Tir (Journey of the Land of Youth): An Exhibition of 20th century Children's Books in Irish, March 1-31, 1989.

The exhibition featured children's books in the Irish language published in the 20th century, and were part of the Alice M. Jordan Collection, named for the first supervisor of children's services at the Boston Public Library. Jordan was described in a local paper as "one of a wave of female librarians who crusaded for more public access to children's books, as well as better children's books, with missionary zeal in the 1920s."

The collection contains "picture books, fiction, non-fiction, toy and moveable books from the infant to the teen level from the 19th century to the present day. Foreign language material from 80 countries is represented as well," according to the Library. Here is a list of Irish titles in the collection.

The BPL has one of the most significant Irish collections in the United States, said to be third after the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library.

In the 1980s, much of the enthusiasm around the library's collection came from James Ford, who was a cataloger, classifier and bibliographer at the library from 1958 to 1991. "Jim was instrumental in significantly building the library's Irish holdings in the 1970s, a period when publishing and scholarship were on the rise in Ireland," according to the Eire Society of Boston Bulletin, June 2006. A native of Lawrence, Ford had undergraduate degrees from Simmons College and Boston College, and a Master's Degree from Harvard's Celtic Languages and Literatures Department.

The Boston Public Library is part of the city's Irish Heritage Trail.

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