John Henry Newman Exhibition

John Henry Newman’s letter to Dr Russell

On 8 October 1845 John Henry Newman wrote to Dr Charles Russell, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Maynooth. ‘I am expecting this evening Father Dominic the Passionist whom I shall ask to admit me to the bosom of the Catholic Church’.

It was a turning point in Newman's life. He was later to write in his Apologia pro Vita Sua in 1864, that Dr Russell ‘had, perhaps, more to do with my conversion than anyone else’.

This important letter is on display in the Russell Library which was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin, who himself was received into the Church in 1833. The library houses other Newman letters and the splendid mahogany book cases with gilded ornament which were Newman’s own when he was rector of the Catholic University on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

The letter will be on display in the Russell Library
Monday 20 September - Thursday 7 October 2010
Monday-Thursday, 10.00-12.30 and 14.00-16.30.

Open to the public and admission is free.
Regretfully no wheelchair access

Tel: 01-708-3890
library.russell@nuim.ie
http://library.nuim.ie/russell