Marsh’s Library

This guide to Marsh's Library in Dublin traces Archbishop Narcissus Marsh, who opened Ireland's first public library here in 1707 and raised his niece Grace under a strict code of conduct. It follows what happened when nineteen-year-old Grace fell for a sea captain her uncle refused to accept, and the strain it put between an ordinarily devoted uncle and niece. Along the way it also covers the library's first keeper, a Huguenot refugee named Elias Bouhereau, and the wire reading cages built to guard its rare volumes.