Attention, handwriting nerds.

If you’re the kind of person who gets weirdly excited about old letters, beautiful scripts, or trying to decipher someone’s messy scrawl, there’s an event in Cork later this month that might be right up your alley.

A workshop called Ink and Imagination: The Art of Handwriting is taking place as part of the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival, giving people a rare chance to dive into the fascinating world of historic handwriting.

Hosted by the team at University College Cork’s Special Collections and Archives, the session will take place inside the Rare Books Reading Room at the UCC Library.

The hour-long event will introduce attendees to paleography, which is essentially the study of historical handwriting. That means learning how to read documents written centuries ago — something that turns out to be trickier than you might think.

What can we expect from the session?

Staff from Special Collections and Archives will guide participants through the different ways handwriting has evolved over time, including how language, spelling, abbreviations, numbers, letter forms and scripts can all affect how a document is interpreted.

And this isn’t just theory. The team will also bring out a selection of fascinating items from the archives so people can see the real thing up close. The materials will span several centuries, with pieces dating from the 16th through to the 20th century, including letters, diaries, music scores and handwritten manuscripts created by authors, academics, composers and scribes.

For anyone who has ever stared at an old handwritten document and wondered how anyone could possibly read it, this is your chance to learn the tricks of the trade. Even better, attendees will get the chance to try it themselves, with handwriting exercises led by the archives staff to help people get a feel for how historical scripts worked.

The event takes place from 3pm to 4pm on Tuesday, April 28th in the Rare Books Reading Room of Special Collections and Archives at University College Cork.

It’s open to the public, but registration is required over here.