29.05.2018
Art and Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland: A Colloquium
This Saturday, 2 June 2018, a gathering of eight academics will take place in the deanery of St Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin to consider ‘Art and culture in medieval and early modern Ireland’. This follows the success of previous cathedral colloquia on the late seventeenth–century travel writer, Thomas Dineley (or Dingley) at Christ Church in October 2014 and on ‘Patronage and the arts in early modern Ireland’ at St Patrick’s in November 2016. Talks will be given in the elegant setting of Swift’s eighteenth–century deanery. Admission is free and all are welcome.
The programme consists of four pairings of speakers, the first dealing with clothing given by Dr Sparky Booker, lecturer in Irish medieval history at Queen’s University, Belfast, and Dr Bríd McGrath, lecturer in palaeography in Trinity College Dublin, who will address medieval and early modern attire in Ireland, respectively. The second pairing will look at intellectual networks and travel writing in the seventeenth century. Dr Mark Empey, lecturer in early modern British and Irish history at the National University of Ireland, Galway, will explore the historical researches of Sir James Ware, while independent scholar, Dr Amy Harris, will study the 1680–1 journal of Thomas Dingley.
Following lunch, the first panel is a veritable Ormond(e)fest with independent scholar, Dr Jane Fenlon addressing the lives of the ninth and tenth earls, James Butler (1496–1546) and Thomas Butler (c.1531–1614), while Dr Naomi McAreavy, assistant professor in the School of English, Drama & Film at University College Dublin, will talk about the female networks of the wife of their first ducal successor. She was Lady Elizabeth Butler née Preston (1615–84), first duchess of Ormonde. The final panel brings the religious and historical culture of late sixteenth–century Pale into focus. Dr Caoimhe Whelan, IRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of History at Trinity College Dublin will discuss the reliability of the St Lawrence family’s book of Howth as a historical source, while Professor Thomas Herron of the Department of English in East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, will conclude proceedings, contrasting the woodcuts of John Derricke with the work of Nuremberg artist, Albrecht Dürer, and the publications of the English historian and martyrologist, John Foxe.
The organisers are most grateful to the dean of St Patrick’s, the Very Revd Dr William Morton for opening his home for this cathedral colloquium and for graciously hosting a reception afterwards.