Mícheál Coimín agus a shaothar

Is é a chuirim romham a dhéanamh sa tráchtas seo ná eagar a chur ar shaothar liteartha Mhíchíl Coimín; file agus údar próis a bhí ag saothrú na litríochta i gCill Chorcoráin, Contae an Chláir san ochtú haois déag. D’éag sé sa bhliain 1760 nuair a bhí sé beagnach 90 bliain d’aois. Is féidir a rá go bhfuil an Coimíneach, ó thaobh chanóin litríocht na Gaeilge de i measc na mionscríbhneoirí, agus níl aon dabht faoi ach go bhfuil an-chuid de léitheoirí na Gaeilge sa lá atá inniu ann dall ar a chuid scríbhneoireachta. Tá cáil air mar údar ‘Laoi Oisín i dTír na n-Óg’ ach mar a léireofar sa tráchtas seo, tá gach cuma ar an scéal nárbh é a scríobh. Tá againn óna pheann dornán beag dánta agus dhá scéal rómánsaíochta (‘Eachtra Thoroilbh Mhic Stairn’ agus ‘Eachtra a Thriúr Mac’) a scríobh sé nuair a bhí an traidisiún sin próis ar an dé deiridh. Níl aon chuid dá shaothar ar fáil in eagráin a shásódh léitheoirí an lae inniu ná na critéir scolártha atá i bhfeidhm anois. Níor tháinig aon lámhscríbhinn, i lámh an Choimínigh, anuas chugainn agus dá bhrí sin bhí dúshlán áirithe ag baint leis an bpróiseas eagarthóireachta. Sa tráchtas rinne mé an suirbhé is iomláine go dtí seo ar a shaothar i dtraidisiún na lámhscríbhinní agus ar na scríobhaithe a rinne é a sheachadadh. Bhí sé mar aidhm agam teacht ar na lámhscríbhinní is údarásaí sa traidisiún d’fhonn eagráin a réiteach a bheadh dílis dá bhunshaothar. Chomh maith leis sin tabharfar cuntas ar a bheatha agus ar a chúlra liteartha, agus déanfar iniúchadh criticiúil ar a shaothar próis agus fileata.

The Irish House of Lords, 1780-1800: politics and ideology

This thesis covers the Irish House of Lords in the last two decades of its life. A number of important themes run through the work - the regency crisis, patronage, the management of the Lords, the relationship between the Lords and Commons. These themes, explored from different angles, are vital to an understanding of the political role of the upper house in the 1780s and 1790s. This study is confined to the Lords as a political institution and thus its judicial role as final court of appeal, which was restored to it in 1782, will not be explored here. The thesis consists of two parts. Part one examines the structure and powers of the House of Lords while part two looks at the parties and policies of the house. Chapter one discusses the British constitution as imposed upon Ireland. Chapter two suggests the reasons why constitutional changes were introduced in 1782, and looks at the contribution made by the Irish House of Lords in securing these changes. Chapter three explores the various channels of influence which the peers enjoyed. Chapter four explores the sometimes tense relationship between Lords and Commons. Chapter five examines management of the House of Lords by Dublin Castle. Part two, begins at chapter six. This chapter explores the leadership of both parties within the Lords. Chapter seven looks at how patronage was used to reward those who were loyal to the government. Chapter eight explores the influence of the Whig opposition. Chapter nine looks at the controversial attempts made by Pitt and his ministry during the 1790s to win the support of catholics and turn them from the lure of French ideas, and of the response of the peers to these attempts. Chapter ten is concerned with the relationship between the peers of the House of Lords and the lords lieutenant during the 1790s. Chapter eleven looks at the Union and the House of Lords and attempts to answer the question historians have long asked: why did the Irish parliament and the House of Lords in particular, look favourably on the proposed union of the two kingdoms and the end of their own institution? The House of Lords in the closing decades of the eighteenth century was an institution within which the wealth and power of the kingdom could be found. Its members were politically active, both inside and outside the house. It contained a majority who saw the Crown as the source of stability, but it was a living and evolving political organism and therefore it contained men who believed that the Crown should have its influence limited. This evolution is also demonstrated in its desire for political change in 1782 and 1788. Its last, and perhaps most radical decision, was to vote for its own demise in 1900.

Edmund Burke and the heritage of oral culture

The dissertation proposes that one of the more fruitful ways of interpreting Burke's work is to evaluate him as an oral performer rather than a literary practitioner and it argues that in his voice can be heard the modulations of the genres and conventions of oral composition of eighteenth-century Gaelic Ireland. The first chapter situates Burke in the milieu of the Gaelic landed class of eighteenth-century Ireland. The next chapter examines how the rich oral culture of the Munster Gaelic gentry, where Burke spent his childhood days, was to provide a lasting influence on the form and content of Burke's work. His speeches on the British constitution are read in the context of the historical and literary culture of the Jacobites, specifically the speculum principis, Párliament na mBán. The third chapter surveys the tradition of Anglo-Irish theoretical writings on oratory and discusses how Burke is aligned with this school. The focus is on how Burke's thought and practice, his 'idioms', might be understood as being mediated through the criterion of orality rather than literature. The remaining chapters discuss Burke's politics and performance in the light of Gaelic cultural practices such as the rituals of the courts of poetry, the Warrant Poems or Barántas; the performance of funeral laments and elegies, Caoineadh, the laments for the fallen nobility, Marbhna na daoine uaisle, the satires and the political vision allegories of Munster, Aislingí na Mumhan; to show how they provide us with a remarkable context for discussing Burke's poetical-political performance. In hearing Burke's voice through the body of Gaelic culture our understanding of Burke's position in the wider world of the eighteenth century (and hence his meaning) is profoundly affected.

Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin: an ecclesiastical microcosm of the twelfth-century Irish midlands

Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin (BCh) is a key source of information about a small ecclesiastical community of the Irish midlands in the medieval period. BCh is one of the longest medieval Irish hagiographic texts. A sole copy exists. Scholarly concern with manuscript Rennes 598, and the Life of Colmán therein, diminished following the 1911 edition of BCh. The most attention paid to BCh in the following decades focused largely on its onomastic information. The necessary detailed study of the text has not been undertaken. The present work is an initial view of significant areas of interaction between the church of Lann and its ecclesiastical, social and political milieu. While social and cultural aspects of the text may constitute the focus of this study, linguistic data is also investigated, complementary to evidence regarding its social and political testimony. In this way, light is cast on a complex ecclesiastical microcosm in the twelfth-century Irish midlands. In keeping with recent methodological work in the field a variety of tools are used to aid investigation, and to show the Life within its genre and wider context. An interdisciplinary approach will bring together strands of literary, cultural, archaeological, onomastic, historical, geographical, genealogical and hagiographical information, with reference to linguistic evidence where appropriate. This thesis seeks to suggest a template for studies undertaken on smaller church communities, and is set out in two main sections. The first section investigates the figure of the saint, his life, church, the manuscript source and the combination of prose and verse in the text. The second section examines the testimony of the Life regarding the ecclesiastical and secular concerns of the community of Lann, and how these concerns are represented. Evidence regarding the members of this community and their interaction with the church and the wider world is also discussed.

Lámhscríbhinní gaeilge i leabharlanna sa tuaisceart

Accepted Version

Ó Sheán Clárach Mac Domhnaill go dtí Nioclás Tóibín: traidisiún na hamhránaíochta ins na Déise

Féachann an tráchtas seo le solas a chaitheamh ar an amhránaíocht mar a chleachtaítí agus mar a chleactaítear fós i gcontae Phort Láirge í. Ardaítear ann ceisteanna a bhaineann le seachadadh agus le sealbhú na n-amhrán I measc an phobail i gceantar na nDéise sa tréimhse c.1750-1960, ó aimsir Sheáin Chláraigh go dtí an ré sin ina raibh Nioclás Tóibín, ‘rí-amhránaí Éireann’, ar bhuaic a réime. Cuirtear spéis anseo i bhfás agus i dteacht chun cinn an Rómánsachais agus (a leathchúpla) an náisiúnachais ar Mhór-roinn na hEorpa in earr an 18ú haois agus amach san 19ú haois; ar thionchar na ngluaiseachtaí sin i bhfad ó bhaile ar Éirinn i gcoitinne san aimsir úd; orthu sin a raibh díolamaí amhrán á gcur in eagar acu in Éirinn san 19ú agus amach san 20ú haois; agus, ar deireadh, ar an stór amhrán mar atá le clos inniu I measc na ndaoine i nGaeltacht na Déise.

History, revolution and the British popular novel: historical fiction in the romantic age

“History, Revolution and the British Popular Novel” takes as its focus the significant role which historical fiction played within the French Revolution debate and its aftermath. Examining the complex intersection of the genre with the political and historical dialogue generated by the French Revolution crisis, the thesis contends that contemporary fascination with the historical episode of the Revolution, and the fundamental importance of history to the disputes which raged about questions of tradition and change, and the meaning of the British national past, led to the emergence of increasingly complex forms of fictional historical narrative during the “war of ideas.” Considering the varying ways in which novelists such as Charlotte Smith, William Godwin, Mary Robinson, Helen Craik, Clara Reeve, John Moore, Edward Sayer, Mary Charlton, Ann Thomas, George Walker and Jane West engaged with the historical contexts of the Revolution debate, my discussion juxtaposes the manner in which English Jacobin novelists inserted the radical critique of the Jacobin novel into the wider arena of history with anti-Jacobin deployments of the historical to combat the revolutionary threat and internal moves for socio-political restructuring. I argue that the use of imaginative historical narrative to contribute to the ongoing dialogue surrounding the Revolution, and offer political and historical guidance to readers, represented a significant element within the literature of the Revolution crisis. The thesis also identifies the diverse body of historical fiction which materialised amidst the Revolution controversy as a key context within which to understand the emergence of Scott’s national historical novel in 1814, and the broader field of historical fiction in the era of Waterloo. Tracing the continued engagement with revolutionary and political concerns evident in the early Waverley novels, Frances Burney’s The Wanderer (1814), William Godwin’s Mandeville (1816), and Mary Shelley’s Valperga (1823), my discussion concludes by arguing that Godwin’s and Shelley’s extension of the mode of historical fiction initially envisioned by Godwin in the revolutionary decade, and their shared endeavour to retrieve the possibility enshrined within the republican past, appeared as a significant counter to the model of history and fiction developed by Walter Scott in the post-revolutionary epoch.

Ocularcentrism and its others: A framework for metatheoretical analysis

There is a contemporary scepticism towards vision-based metaphors in management and organization studies that reflects a more general pattern across the social sciences. In short, there has been a shift away from ocularcentrism. This shift provides a useful basis for metatheoretical analysis of the philosophical discourse that informs organizational analysis. The article begins by briefly discussing the vision-generated, vision-centred interpretation of knowledge, truth, and reality that has characterized the western philosophical tradition. Taking late 18th-century rationalism as the high-point of ocularcentrism, the article then presents a metatheoretical framework based on three trajectories that critiques of ocularcentrism have subsequently taken. The first exposes the limits of the metaphor by, paradoxically, taking it to its limits. The second trajectory seeks to displace the primordial position of the ocular metaphor and replace it with an alternative lexicon based on other human senses. Last, the third trajectory describes how the Enlightenment ocular characterization of the visual and mental worlds has effectively been inverted in the postmodern moment.

Cork’s international trade during the first industrial revolution

This thesis explores the impact international trade and commercial agreements had on the economic and industrial development of Cork during the first industrial revolution. From the Act of Union onwards Cork moved from a region where trade became increasingly reliant on Britain at the expense of trade that had been cultivated over the eighteenth century with the Americas and Europe. The legislative underpinnings of Cork’s trade is the focus of this research and how this changed after the Act of Union. It begins by examining the transatlantic trade of Cork city and the issues faced in the West Indies trade due to the growth of the United States. It will also consider the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on Cork’s trade with both the Americas and continental Europe. The conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars saw the United Kingdom negotiate treaties and agreements that would have a direct impact upon Cork’s merchants. This thesis will address the degree to which the mercantile community in Cork were able to influence policy that directly impacted upon their trade networks. It will then examine the trade between Cork and the United Kingdom and assess the impact of the Union on the ability of Cork’s merchants to affect political change. The operation of the Committee of Merchants in Cork is detailed and their responses to the changing nature of international trade. The thesis finishes by examining the underdevelopment of Cork’s transportation networks. This work will place Cork’s international trade in both its national and international context and argues that Cork’s mercantile community were overly reliant on protectionist legislation to further Cork’s trade as opposed to investment in industrial development. Volumetric data on the trade of Cork city has been transcribed and made available in a relational database to support the arguments made in this thesis and to facilitate future research on this subject. This database is accessible at http://modernirishvenice.com/.