The RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) Heritage Collections will be a key contributor to the upcoming RTÉ ‘Road to the Rising' event this Easter Monday, 6 April.

For one day only, Dublin's O'Connell Street will be transported one hundred years back in time to 1915 to set the scene, in the global backdrop of the commencement of the First World War, that led to the 1916 Rising. The RCSI Heritage Collections will be located in the O'Connell Suite, Gresham Hotel from 11am-3pm as part of the Exhibition Room and Meet the Historians event.

Archivist Meadhbh Murphy will host an exhibition and speak to attendees on ‘The Medical Archives from 1900 onwards'. Here members of the public can learn about what living conditions were like for Dubliners a century ago as well as what medical instruments were being used to carry out surgical procedures of the time. Using real medical instruments, artefacts, photos and documents from the RCSI Heritage Collections, Meadhbh and her colleague Mary O'Doherty (Assistant Librarian, Special Collections, RCSI) will also be on hand to answer any questions on medical archives.

Speaking ahead of the event, Meadhbh Murphy said, "I really can't wait to see how O'Connell Street looks on the day, in a time when Dubliners were fighting a war in foreign lands and another was soon to erupt on their streets. One of the highlights of our exhibition focuses on the reports done by Sir Charles Cameron, President of the College from 1885-1886. Cameron was Public Health Officer for Dublin in the early 1900s and published meticulous annual reports on the sanitation, housing and public conveniences utilised by Dubliners at the time. Cameron also highlighted the plight of those working class families living in the tenements."

The RTÉ Road to the Rising event explores Ireland in the run up to the Revolution, as O'Connell Street, Dublin will become an Edwardian thoroughfare, featuring a host of performances, lectures and speakers and other events that will allow the public to learn about the events that shaped the rising of Easter Week 1916.

RCSI was one of the locations seized by rebels led by Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz during the 1916 Easter Rising. The mission of the RCSI Heritage Collections is to collect, catalogue, preserve and make available to researchers the wealth of knowledge held within the Heritage Collections of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. The Heritage Collections consists of archives, manuscripts, furniture, portraiture, silverware, medical instruments, surgical artefacts and antiquarian books.