Thomas Duncan: Biographical Details
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE CROWN & THE HARP A SERIES OF TWO WEBINARS INTRODUCTION This handout supports my recent pair of webinar lectures delivered in March, 2021. Given the complexity of events covered, a prose introduction is beyond the scope of this document. Those seeking to explore further the history which unites ‘our shared island spaces’ will, I hope, find adequate material in the Reading List below. Full details of the lectures can be found here on our website. Lists of images for both lectures are also included, primarily to aid those who are either unfamiliar with Irish place names, or who might wish to look at the lectures a second time. READING LIST This reading list is not meant to be comprehensive - Irish historic studies is already an over-populated territory. So, I have confined my suggestions to those areas which reflect the material covered in the lectures, based on my own interests and reading. For the early periods of Irish archaeology and history, please refer to the reading list which accompanied the initial pair of lectures on Ancient Ireland, and the list for the group of four lectures on Ireland from the medieval period up to the Act of Union in 1800. If you have not already received these reading lists (they were sent out ONLY to those who registered for both series of lectures) copies can be forwarded via email to anyone who is interested. Books mentioned will not always be in print so you may need to resort to a ‘google’ search to track down a particular title. Those marked with an asterisk * are also available in paperback. I am afraid I am not able to supply ISBN details for books mentioned below. S. Duffy (ed.) Atlas of Irish History*, Gill & Macmillan, 1997 and later editions. R. Killeen Historic Atlas of Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 2009 and later editions. These two books cover much of the material discussed during my Irish webinars and were the source of most of the maps included - they are invaluable. You will also find a series of good maps on The Ireland Story site, www.irelandstory.com C. Brady (ed.) Interpreting Irish History: The Debate on Historical Revisionism 1938 – 1994*, Irish Academic Press, 1995. First, and most important of all, we should be aware that the manner in which Irish history has been written about in the past often reflects either a specific ‘nationalist’ or ‘unionist’ viewpoint, not to mention the divide between ‘Whig’ and other schools of interpretation. I need do no other than quote a web review of the above book: ‘Ciaran Brady has done an excellent job in putting together a collection of documents which both traces the history of revisionism in Irish historiography and uncovers most of the contentious intellectual issues which revisionism raises’. Invaluable, it is highly recommended for serious students of Irish history. 1 R. Kee Ireland – A History*, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980 and many later editions via other imprints. J. Lydon The Making of Ireland*, Routledge, 1998. R. F. Foster Modern Ireland 1600 – 1972*, Penguin Books, 1989. R. F. Foster (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland*, Oxford University Press, 1991. F.S.L. Lyons Ireland since the Famine*, HarperCollins, 1985. A. Jackson Ireland 1798 – 1998, Oxford, Blackwells, 1999. P. Bew Ireland, The Politics of Enmity 1789 – 2006*, Oxford University Press, 2007. M Mulholland Northern Ireland, A Very Short Introduction*, Oxford University Press, 2003. A second point is that some of the older books with which you may be familiar are now likely to be out of date, given the wealth of archival material to emerge in recent decades. This is particularly true of first, the relationship between the two emerging Irish states post 1921and the London governments of the day and second, material concerning the recent ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. This is why I have limited my suggestions for general works on Irish history to those mentioned above. All of the above reflect a sea-change in Irish historiography which has occurred over the last generation, notably reflected in Robert Kee’s book, written to support his ground-breaking TV series. Jim Lydon was one of THE great Irish medievalist of his time (from whose lectures at TCD I learnt much) and with his general history of Ireland you will be in safe hands. Leyland Lyons wrote a ‘ground breaking’ analysis of recent Irish history which influenced a new generation of historians. Roy Foster is the most prominent of these, making waves from the 1980s onwards, and indeed he continues to do so – his regular reviews in the TLS and elsewhere are always worth reading. The second title listed under his name is a series of extended essays written by some of the most stimulating of this ‘revisionist’ generation – it is a marvellous ‘read’. With the two books by Alvin Jackson and Paul Bew we move up a gear – both reflect a new ‘muscularity’ in Irish historiography, seeking to trace the seeds of Irish political differences as manifest in the recent ‘troubles’ back to the later 18th century. Both men taught at Queen’s University, Belfast which, together with University College, Cork has produced remarkable research and associated publications. Marc Mulholland’s book, part of OUP’s excellent ‘A Very Short Introduction’ series is gripping, no more, no less. J. Crowley, W.J. Smyth & M. Murphy (eds.) Atlas of the Great Irish Famine 1845 - 1852, Cork University Press, 2012. ‘Monumental’ is a somewhat devalued word in the lexicon of book reviews. If ever a work on Irish history deserves this distinction, this is it. Weighing in at almost 3.8 kilos, amounting to 712 pages of text, statistical tabulations, maps and related illustrations, this bald description hardly does justice to a remarkable work of scholarship to which fifty-eight scholars contributed essays of varying length. It seeks to give us the story of the Irish Famine in all its horrific details as never before told, baldly presenting the facts, not the fictions, of this tragic chapter in Irish history that is unflinching, powerful and coherent. The editors (all members of University College Cork’s Department of Geography) deserve our gratitude. It is available to purchase on various websites for between £35 and £50. 2 IRISH HSITORY & THE VISUAL ARTS My original aim in hosting these webinars was to present the history of Ireland via the visual arts, a task which I hope I have somewhat fulfilled? I also hope you will forgive my not including in this reading list a section on Irish architecture as for these two lectures the focus has shifted from buildings to events and people; and the literature on Irish architecture was covered in the reading lists for the two earlier series of webinar lectures, to which you should make reference if needed. That said, much of the visual impact for this third series relies on paintings and illustrations from a variety of collections and publications, I include below details of the books from which some of these were sourced for scanning purposes. In addition, the two books by Duffy and Killeen with their invaluable series of maps detailed above, were also ‘plundered’, though annoyingly they did not always reveal the original source from which their non cartographic material came. V. Pakenham The Big House in Ireland, Cassell, 2000. In Valerie Pakenham’s book, her illustrations are taken partly from contemporary engravings and paintings, with lots of photographs of now long gone houses and follies - the latter category including a few of the owners. This is a true GEM of a book, without which my lectures would have been much reduced in terms of visual impact, not to mention her many printed sources from which I quoted. A.O. Crookshank & The Knight of Glin The Painters of Ireland 1660 – 1920, Barrie & Jenkins, 1978. A.O. Crookshank & The Knight of Glin The Watercolours of Ireland, Barrie & Jenkins, 1994. A.O. Crookshank & The Knight of Glin Ireland’s Painters 1600 – 1940, Yale University Press, 2002. The three books jointly written by Anne Crookshank and The Knight of Glin (Desmond Fitzgerald) are a milestone in Irish art history. Anne taught me History of Art at TCD and over the years, first as student and then as friend, I was privileged to observe from close quarters this formidable pair at work. I think it is fair to record that the written text of much of these three books is largely Anne’s, while the opinions and conclusions expressed are the agreed result of oft fraught, indeed heated, exchanges between these two devoted friends. The result is a monument to their joint commitment to a subject which many in mid to late 20th century Ireland viewed with at best indifference, and at worst, hostility. It is to Anne’s credit that through her teaching so many young (and not so young!) art historians have gone on to ‘fight the good fight’, scaling the rockface of widespread Irish indifference to the country’s artistic heritage. A NOTE ON FURTHER IRISH WEBINARS I shall give a series of webinars on Irish Gardens on Tuesdays, April 13th and 20th, with later this year a further group on Painting in Ireland. Dates for these have yet to be decided. 3 FIRST WEBINAR – QUIS SEPERABIT: WHO WILL SEPARATE US? LIST OF PLACES AND INDIVIDUALS MENTIONED IN THE LECTURE Most of the sites included in the list below can be visited, unless otherwise indicated by the use of an asterisk*. Buildings in government or commercial ownership are normally not open, unless by appointment. Most of the works of art listed are in public collections, unless otherwise indicated by the abbreviation PC, or Private Collection.