History Research Collection
Permanent URI for this collection
For more information, please visit the official website.
Browse
Browsing History Research Collection by Issue Date
Now showing 1 - 20 of 66
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- PublicationVatican diplomacy and the Mission of Rinuccini to IrelandGianbattista Rinuccini, the papal nuncio to the confederate catholics of Ireland, was arguably one of the two most important figures in Ireland during the 1640s. Only James Butler, the Marquis of Ormond, exerted a comparable degree of influence over developments in Ireland during this period. Like Ormond, who became the king's Lord Lieutenant in 1643, the nuncio was the official representative in Ireland of a revered external authority. It was this position as the pope's representative, supplemented by a formidable personality and by control over papal financial assistance to Ireland, which formed the basis of Rinuccini's influence. What I propose in this paper is to focus on the reasons for Rinuccini's appointment as nuncio to the confederate catholics of Ireland in March 1645 and the implications which this was to have for the conduct of his mission
250 - PublicationTransforming women in Irish hagiographyThe transformation of women is a common motif in early Irish literature. Three aspects will be dealt with, using mainly hagiographical sources. Initially there will be an exploration of the image of the sovereignty goddess. This will be followed by a discussion of the notion of a woman possessing a masculine soul, and finally, of the evidence for the transvestite saint. It will be argued that these represent aspects of the Irish church's ideology.
682 - PublicationSecuring the Protestant Interest: The Origins and Purpose of the Penal Laws of 1695The origin and the purpose of the Irish penal laws have always been subjects of contention. These laws have often been viewed as a ‘rag-bag’ of legislation, lacking in government policy, without precedent or forethought, motivated by rapacity, unfavoured in England and yet tolerated in return for concessions by an Irish parliament greedy for Catholic land and wealth. However, in the context of the first two Irish penal laws of 1695, and most specifically the disarming act, this generality does not hold good. It is the aim of this article to show that the two penal laws of 1695, for disarming Catholics and prohibiting foreign education, were the result of a definite policy which existed in Ireland from the time of the Williamite war. This policy was built upon a previous tradition of English statutes and Irish proclamations. The pressure for this policy came not only from Irish Protestants, but also from English ministers and from the crown. And the prime motive was security of the Protestant interest. Victory at Limerick in October 1691 did not end the threat to the Williamite Protestant interest in Ireland. Fear of Catholic Europe remained constant as long as William III was at war with France, a fear that was heightened by the activities of privateers and rapparees. In the search for greater security, a policy developed for disarming Irish Catholics, which was actively supported by William III and his executive and legislature in England, was implemented by the executive in Ireland, and was encouraged and promoted by the Irish Protestant interest.
712 - PublicationÍte: patron of her people?St Íte, who flourished in the sixth century, founded the medieval Irish monastery of Killeedy, situated in Co Limerick. She was celebrated as a nurturer and protector of her people. This paper traces these representations and relate them to complex developments in the saint's cult and to the gendered language used to describe her. This language had its origins in early medieval Ireland as well as in the controversies of christian communities in the later Roman empire.
220 - PublicationPowerful women or patriarchal weapons? Two medieval Irish saintsThe history of medieval Irish women is elusive, despite a rich variety of textual sources. These are often normative rather than descriptive and are a predominantly male clerical product. This paper will examine the dossiers of two female saints, both from Co Cork. It will ask whether we can identify female aspirations and female voices in the literary celebration of their careers. Are they models of female empowerment or do their representations ultimately support male power structures.
916 - PublicationThe salvation of the Individual and the salvation of society in Siaburcharpat Con CulaindThis paper examines the early Middle Irish tale Siaburcharpat Con Culaind in which St Patrick is helped in his missionary efforts by the phantom of the dead pagan hero Cú Chulainn. It analyses the role of saint and hero, considering their importance as representatives of ecclesiastical and secular communities.
156 - PublicationCentral Aspects of the Eighteenth-Century Constitutional Framework in Ireland: The Government Supply Bill and Biennial Parliamentary Sessions, 1715-82In the period 1692-1714, the Irish constitution was redefined through a process of political conflict and compromise between the executive and legislature over the question of the provision of money for the government's financial needs. The conflict centred upon two central elements of the existing constitution: Poynings' law and the crown's prerogative in initiating supply legislation. The resulting compromise constitutional framework was characterised by five principles, two of which concerned the government supply bill in the first session of a new parliament and the use by the House of Commons of supply legislation as a means of ensuring biennial parliamentary sessions. This article addresses the question of the application of these two principles in the period 1715-82, and examines the extent to which the politics of supply resulted in further alterations within the constitutional framework prior to legislative independence in 1782.
157 - PublicationA Sailor on the Seas of Faith: The Individual and the Church in the Voyage of Mael DúinThis article analyses the voyage tale Immram Maíle Dúin and considers its attitude towards revenge, forgiveness, the Church and secular society.
295 - Publication'The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing', Vols 4 and 5, and the Invention of Medieval WomenMy focus will be on the first part of Volume IV, ‘Medieval to Modern, 600–1900’ (pp.1–457), especially on the sections dealing with early medieval Ireland. These contributions, and some relevant texts elsewhere, make up a relatively small proportion of the two volumes. Taken as a unit, however, they are the largest modern collection of early medieval texts in translation relating to Irish women. As such they are important: they present a substantial body of material together and in accessible format for the first time.
166 - PublicationEarly Irish history: the state of the artAn analysis of the historiographical state of play in early medieval Irish studies.
675Scopus© Citations 5 - Publication'Homicides royaux' : the assassination of the Duc and Cardinal de Guise and the radicalization of French public opinionThe propaganda campaign launched in response to the assassination of the Duc and Cardinal de Guise on the orders of Henri III in December 1588 was the largest waged in the history of sixteenth-century France. Yet, it has never been the subject of systematic investigation. This article aims to fill this historiographical lacuna by presenting a broad survey of the principal arguments and techniques employed both by the Royalists, who sought to justify the act, and the League who exploited the event to radicalise Catholic opinion against Henri III. It finds that while the king was partly unwilling and partly unable to engage in any serious attempt to influence public opinion, the League exploited the media to defend the Guises as Catholic martyrs and to discredit the king as a criminal and irreligious tyrant.
965Scopus© Citations 8 - PublicationEnglish Ministers, Irish Politicians and the Making of a Parliamentary Settlement in Ireland, 1692-5In the first post-Glorious Revolution Parliament in Ireland in 1692, a constitutional crisis erupted over the House of Commons’ claim to have the ‘sole and undoubted right’ to initiate financial supply legislation in Ireland, and their rejection of the majority of the government’s legislative programme, including the most substantial provisions for financial supply. Not only did the ‘sole right’ claim result in the loss of desperately needed income for the government, it also represented an attack upon the existing constitutional framework in Ireland, in particular Poynings’ Law and the Crown’s prerogative in initiating legislation. The hasty prorogation of Parliament following these events led to political impasse in Ireland at the end of 1692. This article details the endeavours that were made to break that impasse, and examines the roles taken by leading English ministers, in particular those associated with the Whig party, and by a new generation of Irish politicians, many of whom were also whiggish in inclination, in the negotiation of a compromise settlement in 1694–5. The compromise solution eventually agreed upon in early 1695 resulted later in that year in the summoning of a new Irish Parliament, in which substantial necessary financial supplies were voted for the government. In the longer term, the 1695 compromise came to form the basis for a new constitutional framework for Irish executive-legislature relations that facilitated the advent of regular parliamentary sessions on a biennial basis in Ireland in the eighteenth century.
276Scopus© Citations 4 - PublicationGovernment, parliament and the constitution: the reinterpretation of Poynings' Law, 1692-1714The history of Poynings’ Law is complex and multifaceted. Much has been written about it, at times with the end result being a recognition that to investigate Poynings’ Law is to venture into a quagmire. At the same time, a number of important works have been published over the years that throw light upon specific periods in the history of that law. Until recently, much of the focus has been on the period stretching from the passage of the law in 1494-5 up to 1641, with some significant excursions into the eighteenth-century history of the law. Two newer studies demonstrate a shift in focus: one a detailed study of the 1640s; the other a broader work on the history of the law from 1660 to 1800. However, at present, gaps still remain in our knowledge of the subject, particularly for the last one hundred and forty years of the law’s existence. This article aims to fill one such gap, by focusing upon the period 1692-1714.
362Scopus© Citations 9 - PublicationAspects of the Breton transmission of the HibernensisBrittany played a major role in the early transmission of the Collectio canonum hibernensis. In total, seven copies of the Hibernensis (and a fragment) were written in Brittany or copied from Breton exemplars, and all complete copies of the Hibernensis but two have Breton connexions. The present paper examines how the Hibernensis figured in ninth-century Breton ecclesiastical politics, and introduces new evidence pertaining to individual Breton copies of the Hibernensis and their relationship.
348 - PublicationThe Heroic Importance of Sport: The GAA in the 1930sThis article examines the cultural importance accorded to sporting activity by Ireland's largest sporting organisation, the Gaelic Athletic Association, during the 1930s. Making use of the source material provided by a short-lived paper funded by the GAA, as well as the minutes of its central organisational bodies, it examines the paradigm of opposed Irish and British civilisations which underpinned ideas of the cultural role of sport. The article suggests that many of the attitudes evinced by the GAA actually derived from nineteenth century and contemporary British notions of team games and athletic competition. Nevertheless, by transforming sporting choice and preference into a badge of national identity, the article suggests that the GAA performed an important role within the touchy nationalism of the newly independent Irish Free State, and its conviction of its own importance helped fuel the elaboration of a genuinely distinctive variant of the European practice of sport.
432 - PublicationBook Review: Sport and Society in Victorian Ireland: The Case of WestmeathUntil the last decade, scholarly work on the history of sport and leisure in Ireland was most noted by its absence. Historians of modern Ireland almost entirely ignored the importance of sport as a historical phenomenon, preferring to concentrate on matters of church and state. The result of this was the publication of highly-regarded volumes which focused on the development of modern Irish society, but almost entirely ignored sport.
135 - PublicationThe 'Union' Representation of 1703 in the Irish House of Commons: A case of mistaken identity?(2008-11)In October 1703 the Irish House of Commons agreed a lengthy representation to Queen Anne which has since been used by historians as evidence of significant unionist sentiment in Ireland. This article examines the origin, context and purpose of the representation. In particular, it addresses the extent to which events in Ireland were influenced by the early negotiations for the Anglo-Scottish Union, and advocates a greater contextualisation of the evidence used to argue for the existence of pro- and anti-union sentiment in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Ireland.
210 - PublicationGuerre de religion ou guerre ethnique? Les conflits religieux en Irlande 1500-1650The early modern period witnessed the establishment of deeply-entrenched rival religious confessions in Ireland, which exhibited a constant potential for sectarian conflict down to the close of the twentieth century. This process was carried to its extreme in the northern province of Ulster where early modern Protestant immigration into Ireland reached its highest point, resulting in the development of a Catholic identity which was essentially Irish in its ethnic composition, a substantially Scottish Presbyterian strand, and a politically-dominant Anglican population of largely English origin. But even in the southern provinces of Connacht, Leinster and Munster, the basis of what was to become an independent and highly Catholic state in the twentieth century, as a result of the events of the early modern period different local religious communities were forced into an uneasy co-existence. Outside Ulster, the complicating admixture of Protestant dissent and Scottish ethnicity was much reduced and few localities did not display a large Catholic majority, but the political dominance of the established church ensured at least a thin overlay of Protestants throughout the island, although in places such as parts of Connacht their numbers were extremely insignificant. Sectarian difference did not entail permanent conflict, mutual co-existence was the historical norm rather than the exception, yet the confessional identities were always at least latently antagonistic and when violence erupted it could take extraordinarily virulent forms. In this regard, the middle of the seventeenth century was arguably the period of greatest strife and loss of life, which copper-fastened the process of religious polarisation.
1805 - PublicationIn Pursuit of a Positive Construction: Irish Catholics and the Williamite Articles of Surrender, 1690-1701Following the defeat of the Irish Jacobite army in 1691, for many Catholics the choice was stark: to go into exile on the Continent, or to remain in Ireland under the government of a victorious yet resentful Protestant minority. For some, however, emigration was impractical or unappealing. Furthermore, a considerable proportion of the Catholic elite of Ireland made a positive choice to remain in their native country. These men were determined to retain possession of their property and enjoy the rights promised to them by the articles of surrender. The fate of the exiles has long engaged the popular imagination and the interest of historians, yet few have explored the lives of the ‘dastard gentry’ who remained in Ireland.
319 - PublicationFrom Symbolism to Futurism: Poupées Électriques and ElettricitàIn this paper I examine how Filippo Tommaso Marinetti transformed his three-act drama Poupées Électriques (1909) into a one-act Futurist sintesi Elettricità (1913). Through the analysis of draft versions of Elettricità and of Futurist manifestos, both the process by which Marinetti enacted this textual transformation and the reasons behind the changes made to the French play in its passage to becoming an Italian playlet will be explored. A series of drafts for Elettricità, which are held at the F. T. Marinetti Papers Collection at the Beinecke Library, Yale University, uncover the progression from French original to Italian translation. Close textual analysis of the two plays will demonstrate how Marinetti sought to change elements of Poupées Électriques so that Elettricità would reflect his new Futurist world vision. The significance of many of the changes Marinetti made only becomes clear when Elettricità is contextualised within other developments in the Futurist ideology and to Marinetti's manifesto output.
467