30 January 2016
Today’s blog aims to tell our readers about the inspiration behind our project name and logo. The acronym ERIN stands for Europe’s Reception of the Irish Melodies and National Airs. I can think of the titles of three Irish Melodies that include the word ‘Erin’: “Erin, the tear and the smile in thine eyes”; “Erin, Oh Erin” and “Let Erin remember the days of old”. The word Erin used in this context is very powerful as it has both nostalgic and nationalistic connotations; themes very central to Moore’s work. When it came to choosing an acronym for our project we felt it was important to come up with something catchy yet suitable to the subject area. The acronym had to be decided at the funding application stage. During the early stages of our project we decided to have a logo designed. We were particularly inspired by Moore’s Egan harp, which is now owned by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in Dublin. We were very keen to incorporate an image using or based on this beautiful and ornate harp into our logo. We would like to acknowledge our thanks and appreciation to Siobhán Fitzpatrick and the staff at the RIA who very kindly and generously facilitated our request. We would also like to thank and acknowledge Darragh Neely of Darragh Neely Design Works who designed our logo. For more information about the Royal Irish Academy Library and Darragh Neely Design Works please visit the links below. Let us know in the comments what you think of our acronym and logo. Check out the Wikipedia entry for the word Erin and see what varied logos you can find if you Google search Erin!