Libraries Northern Ireland

Armed robbers stole literary treasures from a library in the city of Armagh, among them a copy of "Gulliver's Travels" that included handwritten alterations by author Jonathan Swift. The two robbers burst into the public library in Armagh, about 35 miles southeast of Belfast, Northern Ireland's capital, and held a gun to a library assistant's head before tying her up, police said. The robbers then systematically smashed glass cases and stole items estimated to be worth about $165,000.

Armed robbers stole literary treasures from a library in the city of Armagh, among them a copy of "Gulliver's Travels" that included handwritten alterations by author Jonathan Swift. The two robbers burst into the public library in Armagh, about 35 miles southeast of Belfast, Northern Ireland's capital, and held a gun to a library assistant's head before tying her up, police said. The robbers then systematically smashed glass cases and stole items estimated to be worth about $165,000.

When "the Troubles" here are finally the stuff of history books and not the daily newspaper, the dedicated, intrepid people who work at a private library in this provincial capital will be counted among the heroes. Sometime in 1968, the story goes, at the onset of what would turn out to be three decades of bloody clashes between Roman Catholics and Protestants, Jimmy Vitty, then the head of Belfast's Linen Hall Library, was handed a civil rights leaflet at a bar in the city center.

When "the Troubles" here are finally the stuff of history books and not the daily newspaper, the dedicated, intrepid people who work at a private library in this provincial capital will be counted among the heroes. Sometime in 1968, the story goes, at the onset of what would turn out to be three decades of bloody clashes between Roman Catholics and Protestants, Jimmy Vitty, then the head of Belfast's Linen Hall Library, was handed a civil rights leaflet at a bar in the city center.