Nineteenth-century Ireland Research Articles

Irish droughts in newspaper archives: rediscovering forgotten hazards?

Irish newspaper collections are a rich source of information on historical droughts. Following a search of 250 years of such archives, this paper brings to light four newspaper articles describing three drought events that convey the cultural impacts and unusual societal responses to drought in nineteenth century Ireland. Amongst the archives we find two poems from 1806 and 1893, a call to pray for rain in 1887, and a suggestion for weather modification in 1893. These records demonstrate that, contrary to recent experience, Ireland is surprisingly prone to drought.

Ourselves Alone? Religion, Society and Politics in Eighteenth‐ and Nineteenth‐Century Ireland: Essays Presented to S.J. Connolly. Edited by D.W.Hayton and Andrew R.Holmes. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2016. 235 pp. £50.00. ISBN 9781846825927.

Parliamentary HistoryVolume 36, Issue 2 p. 264-265 Review Ourselves Alone? Religion, Society and Politics in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Ireland: Essays Presented to S.J. Connolly. Edited by D.W. Hayton and Andrew R. Holmes. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2016. 235 pp. £50.00. ISBN 9781846825927. Stephen Farrell, Stephen Farrell House of Commons HansardSearch for more papers by this author Stephen Farrell, Stephen Farrell House of Commons HansardSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 June 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12282Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume36, Issue2June 2017Pages 264-265 RelatedInformation

William Dargan, An Honourable Life (1799–1867) by Fergus Mulligan (review)

Despite these lapses of presentation, Fanning has yet again produced a stimulating book that opens new perspectives on modern Ireland. Patrick Maume works as a researcher with the Royal Irish Academy’s ongoing Dictionary of Irish Biography. He is a graduate of University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast. William Dargan, An Honourable Life (1799–1867), Fergus Mulligan (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2013), 312 pages. Daniel O’Connell looms large in my life. His extraordinary contribution to our prospects and culture changed all that followed in his political wake. As an Irish politician I stand, with due humility, on the shoulders of his achievements. The other, more prosaic, reason for his prominence is that I can see his grave every morning from my bedroom window! This view is possible because I am very lucky to live close to the national treasure that is Glasnevin Cemetery. The proximity of this cemetary to the Botanic Gardens, and their joining through a spendid gateway constructed by the Office of Public Works, offers an extraordinary and rewarding trail. Life and death are juxtaposed, with many and varied aspects of our national heritage on display. My more recent visits to this pathway have included a visit to a slightly less well-known grave, that of William Dargan – engineer and businessman. This year marks the 150th anniversary of his death. This anniversary makes it all the more appropriate to comment on a beautiful biography, William Dargan, An Honourable Life 1799–1867, by Fergus Mulligan, a life-long devotee of this extraordinary figure. The author opens with the claim that, ‘One of the aims of this book is to show just how unique was Dargan’s contribution to Ireland and to suggest that he, as much and probably more than any other figure in nineteenth-century Ireland, deserves that overused and sometimes abused title of “patriot”. He was, this volume contends, “a giant among men”’. Upon completing this delightful book, this reader, for one, is now in full agreement with both claims. Before moving to the canvas of achievement that was the life of Dargan, it is worth pausing on some of his lesser-known contributions and efforts.Any of these would merit a footnote in Irish history, but their recognition, along with his more famous achievements, does justice 246 Studies • volume 106 • number 422 Summer 2017: Book Reviews to the breadth of his accomplishments. The Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853 has unduly faded to the recesses of our national history. Organised by the Royal Dublin Society, this event was at the instigation of Dargan, who was a life member of the RDS. His motivations extended beyond reflecting national glory. He negotiated a deal that stipulated that, if the surplus from the exhibition exceeded a certain level, he would receive £20,000 plus five per cent of the excess. If the exhibition made a loss, he would cover the deficit. This acumen was at the heart of all else he would achieve. The exhibition was held in a hall constructed on the lawns of what is commonly known as Leinster House on Kildare Street. Standing ninety metres tall, ‘The inside was painted light blue, the ribs in buff picked out in scarlet’. The opening ceremony was attended by dignitaries, including the mayors of Manchester and Liverpool and a government minister from Peru. Within a week visitor numbers reached 5,000 per day. Such success garnered royal interest, with Queen Victoria paying a visit on 30 August 1853. Upon meeting Dargan she ‘laid her hand on his arm and shook it warmly, drawing a burst of cheering from the crowd’. Such warmth extended to a visit to his home, in Mount Anville, where she drank tea and admired the views of Dublin Bay. The industry and vision of Dargan is similarly reflected in an uncelebrated, minor but fascinating episode of Irish transport history. The opening of the Dublin to Galway railway line in 1851 led to the pursuit of an extraordinary opportunity for Galway Port. This presented the potential for it to be used as the main port for transatlantic travel between Britain, Ireland and America. Mulligan notes that almost every town on the west coast, including...

Narrative, Law and Emotion: Husband Killers in Early Nineteenth-Century Ireland

ABSTRACTScholars of emotion and the law have sought to demonstrate the significant role emotion plays in shaping the operation of courtrooms, the development of legal theory and practice, and the possibilities for justice. This paper contributes to the discussion by exploring what happens when emotion is ignored or underplayed in trial narratives, seeking to demonstrate that whose emotion is considered to be important can shed light on power dynamics, law and the cultures in which law operates. It does so through a case study of women on trial for murdering their husbands in early nineteenth-century Ireland. It argues that emotion is not simply another species of evidence that can be used in criminal processes, but itself a type of narrative – emotion is constructed and performed by actors in legal dramas and forms a competing story to others in the courtroom space.

Performing Emotion and Reading the Male Body in the Irish Court, c. 1800–1845

Justice in the early nineteenth-century Irish court was shaped by the bodies of men. Physical appearance was understood to provide information about a person's social background, character, sense of guilt, and honesty; it was available to be read by others in the court when interpreting events during trial. As well as making judgements based on clothing and the appearance of the body, how court actors performed emotion was central to discussions of how their bodies, and so their character, should be read. Such readings of emotion on the male body were heavily shaped by the science of physiognomy that provided a model for interpreting often complex, ambiguous, and individualized displays of emotion. This article uses evidence provided in newspaper reporting of criminal trials in early nineteenth-century Ireland to explore how performances of emotion were used and interpreted as a form of evidence in the courtroom. It demonstrates that emotion and emotional dispositions were central to determining a man's character, affecting how their evidence was viewed and whether they received justice. As importantly, displays of emotion in court were involved in the shaping of courtroom dynamics. In both cases, emotion became implicated in the making of justice.

‘from education, from duty, and from principle’: Irish Catholic loyalty in context, 1829-1874

The passage of the Emancipation Act in 1829 presented an opportunity for Catholics to reimagine their loyalty as equal subjects for the first time under the union between Great Britain and Ireland. This article explores the way Catholic loyalty was conceived in the decades that followed the act of 1829 through to the mid 1870s, when there was renewed focus on the civil allegiance of Catholics following the declaration of Papal infallibility. Historians are increasingly exploring a range of social, political and religious identities in nineteenth century Ireland, beyond the rigid binary paradigm of Catholic nationalisms and Protestant loyalisms that has dominated Irish historiography. However, Catholic loyalty in particular remains an anachronism and lacks sufficient conceptual clarity. Our understanding of a specifically Catholic variant of loyalty and its public and associational expression, beyond a number of biographical studies of relatively unique individuals, remains limited. By providing an exposition of episodes in the history of Catholic loyalty in the early and mid-Victorian years this article illuminates the phenomenon. It demonstrates that Irish Catholic loyalty took on different expressive forms, which were dependent on the individuals proclaiming their loyalty, their relationship to the objects of their loyalty, and its reception by the British state and Protestant establishment.

The Development of Liberalistic Integration in Early Nineteenth Century Ireland:

The Development of Liberalistic Integration in Early Nineteenth Century Ireland:

Population, Providence and Empire: The Churches and Emigration from Nineteenth-Century Ireland, by Sarah Roddy

Population, Providence and Empire: The Churches and Emigration from Nineteenth-Century Ireland, by Sarah Roddy

Village and town in mid nineteenth century Ireland

No abstract!

Village and town in mid nineteenth century Ireland

No abstract

Street Ballads in Nineteenth-century Britain, Ireland, and North America: The Interface between Print and Oral Traditions. Edited by David Atkinson and Steve Roud . Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. 290 pp. ISBN 9781472427410

Street Ballads in Nineteenth-century Britain, Ireland, and North America: The Interface between Print and Oral Traditions. Edited by David Atkinson and Steve Roud . Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. 290 pp. ISBN 9781472427410

Drink and culture in nineteenth-century Ireland: the alcohol trade and the politics of the Irish public house

Introduction Chapter 1: Reform and Secret Societies Chapter 2: Consolidating the Trade Chapter 3: Irish Sunday Closing Chapter 4: Nationalist Politics, 1867-90 Chapter 5: Trade Growth and Modernization Chapter 6: New Challenges, 1902-14 Chapter 7: The First World War and the Trade Conclusion

Funding a Roman Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Funding a Roman Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Sir William Wilde and provision for the blind in nineteenth-century Ireland.

As Assistant Commissioner for the Census of Ireland Sir William Wilde worked as an early epidemiologist, providing information regarding the deaf-and-dumb and the blind in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland. As a social agitator he focussed the attention of the authorities to the plight of the blind and their inability to earn a living and support themselves. This paper highlights his contribution to the provision for the blind in Ireland.

A Matter of Life and Death: A Note on a Religious Book Club in Fethard, County Tipperary, in 1835

Evidence for the existence of book clubs in nineteenth-century Ireland (other than in Ulster) is rare, and even rarer is documentation of their members and the titles of the books they read. The discovery (made by Peter Hoare in the library of Hatfield House) of the rules and circulation list of the Fethard Book Society in County Tipperary is notable because it provides details of a religious book club run for Anglo-Irish Protestants who lived in what emerges as a dangerous area of a countryside dominated by Roman Catholic adversaries.

Charles Mollan (Editor). William Parsons, Third Earl of Rosse: Astronomy and the Castle in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. (Royal Dublin Society–Science and Irish Culture Series, 4.) xxii + 368 pp., illus., bibl., index. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. £70 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsCharles Mollan (Editor). William Parsons, Third Earl of Rosse: Astronomy and the Castle in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. (Royal Dublin Society–Science and Irish Culture Series, 4.) xxii + 368 pp., illus., bibl., index. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. £70 (cloth).Paul FayterPaul Fayter Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 106, Number 4December 2015 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/684743 Views: 27Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref © 2015 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2016, Isis 107, no.S1S1 (Jun 2017): i–240.https://doi.org/10.1086/692972

The Politics of Jury Trial in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

This article considers aspects of lay participation in the Irish justice system, focusing on some political dimensions of the trial jury in the nineteenth century. It then identifies some broad themes common to systems of lay participation generally, and particularly nineteenth-century European systems. These include perceptions of legitimacy, State involvement and interference with jury trials, and issues around representativeness. The traditional lack of scholarship in the area of comparative criminal justice history has meant that many of the commonalities between different jury systems have been hitherto unexplored. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to a wider discussion of the various commonalities and differences in the development of lay participation in justice systems.

Population, providence, and empire: the churches and emigration from nineteenth-century Ireland. By Sarah Roddy. Pp xii, 275. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2014. £70.

Population, providence, and empire: the churches and emigration from nineteenth-century Ireland. By Sarah Roddy. Pp xii, 275. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2014. £70.

The regional dimension of national education in pre-Famine Ireland

The establishment of the National Education System in 1831 provided Ireland with a non-denominational education system aimed at reducing sectarian distrust and uniting the population. The national system was one element in the wider emergence of an institutional landscape in nineteenth century Ireland. The system involved a central-local management structure with the Commissioners of National Education having tight central control of an overall system but relied on local impetus to apply for, establish, and operate individual schools. As a result of this interaction, the emergence of national education was dependent on activities of various individuals and groups in Irish society, most notably the hierarchies of the various Churches. This paper examines the geographic aspects of the emergence of national education in the landscape of pre-Famine Ireland. The emergence of the system occurred in four distinct phases, with the activities of different groups affecting the uptake of national education. The distribution of national schools across the country is examined through thematic mapping, which identifies the development of distinct areas of high national-school densities and other areas of relative non-adoption. The pattern of national education in pre-Famine Ireland can be highly generalised by a line running from Sheephaven Bay in Donegal to Waterford Harbour, with the areas east of this line exhibiting high rates of national-school establishment, and areas to the west experiencing low national-school establishment. Spatial analysis is used to detect clusters of densities and provides further evidence of the spatial nature of national education. The spatial analysis is combined with the thematic mapping and discussion to produce a general regional map of the emergence of national education in pre-Famine Ireland. The regional map illustrates the role that social interactions played in the spatial emergence of institutions of the British state in nineteenth century Ireland.

An early in-service intervention in Irish mid-nineteenth century elementary education

The political and social rationale for the establishment of a national system of education in nineteenth-century Ireland has been the focus of considerable attention by scholars. Less attention has, however, been paid to teacher quality and school effectiveness within that system. Various efforts were made over the course of the century to address the issues of teacher quality and school effectiveness. The paid monitor was introduced in the early 1840s to convent and ordinary national schools, with paid pupil–teacher programmes recognised in the larger convent and national schools during the same period. A more strategic effort was made to address the issue of teacher quality with the introduction of an in-service type intervention from the mid-1850s to provide a school-based programme for teachers and managers in effective school organisation. Examining this intervention is the purpose of this paper: what was its rationale and purpose, how was it planned and implemented; what was its impact and what is its historical legacy?