{"id":566658,"date":"2026-07-24T22:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/566658\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T22:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:30:10","slug":"pat-donlon-first-female-director-of-a-national-institution-in-ireland-dies-aged-83-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/566658\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Donlon, first female director of a national institution in Ireland, dies aged 83 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first female director of a national institution in Ireland, Patricia Donlon, has died at the age of 83.<\/p>\n

Donlon, known as Pat, served as the first female director of the National Library of Ireland<\/a> (NLI) from 1989 to 1997 and was the first female director of a national institution in Ireland.<\/p>\n

The librarian and academic was born on January 28th, 1943, and grew up in the Liberties in Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She married Phelim Donlon, who died in 2014, in the early 60s. She met him at her sister\u2019s wedding where she was a bridesmaid and Phelim was the groom\u2019s best man. Together, they lived in Blackrock and had two daughters, Lorna Donlon and Sin\u00e9ad Kelly. He worked as a drama officer in the Arts Council<\/a>. <\/p>\n

After getting married, she had to give up her job in RT\u00c9<\/a> where she worked as a researcher.<\/p>\n

Following the birth of her daughters, she went back to college and studied Spanish at University College Dublin<\/a> (UCD).<\/p>\n

Her daughter Lorna said that while writing the thesis for her Masters, she was awarded a PhD.<\/p>\n

She also completed the librarianship diploma at UCD and taught children\u2019s literature as part of it.<\/p>\n

She gave a series of Sandars lectures, an annual lecture series given at Cambridge University, about Irish children\u2019s literature and Irish children\u2019s illustrators.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a particular sort of specialised interest in Irish children\u2019s illustrators and she had actually amassed a large collection of Irish children\u2019s books which is now part of the National Library collection,\u201d Lorna Donlon said.<\/p>\n

She then went on to work in the library of the Royal Irish Academy and later became the curator of the Western Collection at the Chester Beatty Library before moving to the NLI.<\/p>\n

\"PatPat Donlon as director of the National Library with playwright Hugh Leonard (centre) and then-minister for the arts Michael D Higgins in 1996. Photograph: David Sleator <\/p>\n

During her time as director of the NLI, her daughter Sin\u00e9ad said she \u201cspearheaded\u201d a number of projects, including the the release of over two hundred letters from James Joyce to his friend and confidant Paul L\u00e9on; the acquisition of dramatist Hugh Leonard\u2019s archive; the digitisation of the NLI catalogue and the creation of a collection of Irish children\u2019s literature for the NLI including works by her former student Marita Conlon McKenna.<\/p>\n

When she finished at the library, she told The Irish Times: \u201cI\u2019m sad about it. I love the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI came in to make a difference and I did make a difference, but that difference was not as big as I would have liked it to be. I want it to be worthy of the title of National Library.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that interview with Eileen Battersby, then former literary correspondent, Donlon said, \u201cI love the business of researching and assessing material. Above all, I love the world of books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donlon was also the first woman to be appointed Chief Herald of Ireland and in 1997, presented a coat of arms to the then president Mary Robinson.<\/p>\n

She later went on to become the director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, a residential workplace for artists, designers, directors, critics, and others in the arts sector in Co Monaghan.<\/p>\n

Donlon\u2019s daughter Lorna said she loved learning and \u201calways had a love of books,\u201d a love that she passed on to her children. \u201cThe house is absolutely covered in books from top to toe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PatriciaPatricia Donlon pictured at the National Library during her tenure. <\/p>\n

She also described her as \u201cunconventional\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would have been a feminist for sure and somebody who was just going to crash the barriers down.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that her mother loved travelling, especially to Spain and Italy. \u201cHerself and my father travelled a lot in Italy. They had three special friends who they travelled together with to Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also enjoyed attending concerts in the National Concert Hall and plays in theatres. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a particular love of poetry so, she has a huge collection of poetry books.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that through her job at the NLI, \u201cshe would have met Seamus Heaney and she knew a lot of writers and poets\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first female director of a national institution in Ireland, Patricia Donlon, has died at the age of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22810,157633,615,61,60,50289,43,140449,6085,39935],"class_list":["post-566658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-arts-council","tag-chester-beatty-library","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-national-library-of-ireland","tag-news","tag-royal-irish-academy","tag-rte","tag-university-college-dublin-ucd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}