RIA, IMC, VRTI Launch new Guild of St Anne Gold Seam

From left to right: Barbara McCormack, RIA Librarian; Ciarán Wallace, VRTI Co-Director; John McCafferty, Chair of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. Image courtesy of Royal Irish Academy.

On Wednesday, 22 October 2025, the VRTI joined the Royal Irish Academy and the Irish Manuscripts Commission to launch the Guild of St Anne Gold Seam.

Established in 1430, the Guild brought together merchants and bureaucrats, landlords and tenants, and families and neighbours based around St Audoen’s church, Cornmarket. Over the centuries, they produced hundreds of original parchment deeds. From donations and bequests, to wills and conveyances, these extensive property records reveal the ordinary – and sometimes extraordinary – stories of the women and men of St Anne’s Guild.

The launch saw the following speakers give papers:

• ‘Curating the Guild of St Anne Collection’ – Barbara McCormack, Academy Librarian
• ‘The survival of the Guild of St Anne in the early modern period’ – Colm Lennon, MRIA
• ‘Doorways into the Past: Two Cook Street Properties of the Guild of St Anne’ – Dr Theresa O’Byrne, Virtual Record Treasury Associate Researcher
• ‘From Script to Screen: The Guild of St Anne Gold Seam’ –  Dr Lynn Kilgallon, Virtual Record Treasury Research Fellow in Medieval History

The launch also saw speeches from VRTI Co-Director Dr Ciarán Wallace, IMC Chair Dr John McCafferty, and RIA President Dr Pat Guiry.