Author: ECIS

Type: Article

Legg, Marie-Louise. ‘Money and Reputations: The Effects of the Banking Crises of 1755 and 1760’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 74-87..

Following the failure of a number of Dublin banks, 1759 was a year in which the whole banking system of Ireland was on the brink Continue reading Vol. 11: Legg, Marie-Louise.

Type: Article

Kuti, Elizabeth. ‘Rewriting Frances Sheridan’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 120-128.

This article discusses Frances Sheridan’s career as a playwright in eighteenth-century Ireland. Renowned for her novels The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph and Nourjahad, Sheridan’s plays have been overshadowed by her accomplishment as a novelist Continue reading Vol. 11: Kuti, Elizabeth.

Type: Article

Bric, Maurice J. ‘Ireland, America and the Reassessment of a Special Relationship, 1760-83’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 88-119.

This article discusses the relationship between Ireland and America and themes of “Atlantic Patriotism” born out of the Anglo-American conflict. In the eighteenth century, Irish patriots Continue reading Vol. 11: Bric, Maurice J.

Type: Article

Whelan, Kevin. ‘An Underground gentry? Catholic Middlemen in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 7-68.

Despite having been reduced to the position of middlemen and substantial farmers in the eighteenth-century, Irish descendents of the old catholic landowning families occupied an important role as the leaders of political and popular culture in Irish society. The displaced catholic gentry formed a new social and economic system for survival in response to the conflict and upheaval caused by the issues of land ownership. “The descendants of the old proprietors mutated into an underground gentry, the shadow lords of eighteenth-century Ireland.” Whelan’s examines, among othwer topics, the origins of the middleman system and its Jacobite influences, the middleman families’ obsession with ancestry and their contempt for the Cromwellian landlords, and the influence of the middlemen in Irish popular culture. The concept of middlemen gave rise to the ‘catholic big farmer’, a far more conservative line of the Irish catholic gentry who enjoyed prosperity and secure positions in society. Whelan discusses the increasing anxiety felt by the official gentry in response to the independence and power achieved by the families of catholic middlemen and big farmers. The idea of an alternative gentry of Jacobites and United Irishmen strained the relations between protestant landlords and catholic tenants.

Type: Article

Parnell, J. T. ‘‘Que sçais-je?’—Montaigne’s Apology, Hamlet and Tristram Shandy: Enquiry and Sceptical Response’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), Pp 148-155.

While contemporary critics considered Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to be a work of plagiarism, modern critics celebrate it for “laying bare of the conditions of literary production”. This article discusses the intertextuality of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, with particular reference to Sterne’s literary allusions to Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Montaigne’s Apology. Parnell acknowledges the contextualities explored by one recent critic, Jonathan Lamb, but criticizes the limits that Lamb imposes through a narrow view of Sterne’s influences. Like Swift and Montaigne, “Sterne is intellectually radical and the discourse of his fiction clearly has subversive potential, and yet such potential is paradoxically contained and appropriated for conservative ends”. Parnell maintains that Sterne consciously alluded to particular works popular during the eighteenth century in order to make Tristram Shandy more comprehensible to his readers.

Type: Article

McMinn, Joseph. ‘In State Opinions Alamode: Swift and the Frontispiece to Thomas Burnett’s Essays (1714)’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 120-126..

This article gives an account of a small octavo volume entitled Essays Divine, Moral and Political which was supposed to have been written by Jonathan Swift in 1714 — the year in which the Tories fell from power and Swift took up residence at the Deanery of St. Patrick’s. The volume is in fact a product of political vengeance, probably written by one of Swift’s Whig opponents, Thomas Burnet. One of the most interesting features of the volume is the frontispiece, an engraving which shows Swift on horseback, leaving buildings which are said to represent Swift’s Deanery in Dublin. McMinn analyses the scene depicted in the engraving and its relevance to the Essays. While evidence suggests that the picture is fictitious, having no actual connection to Swift’s Deanery or to Dublin, he concludes that the images are meant to represent Swift as a man “on the run…disturbed by alarming political news: this is the most plausible link between the Whig witch-hunt of the period and the image of Swift departing from his new home”.

Type: Article

Kelly, James. ‘A Most Inhuman and Barbarous Piece of Villainy’: An Exploration of the Crime of Rape in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 78-107..

In eighteenth-century Ireland, the occurrence of sexual violence against women was frequent enough to require strong legislation, including the provision of capital punishment, to punish men who raped women. While evidence suggests that the legislative changes of 1710 made it easier to prosecute a man for rape, resulting in more convictions, the ‘disincentives’ for women to report and prosecute a rapist far outweighed any benefits intended by the law. The patriarchal idealization of female virtue made it necessary for any woman to “maintain the illusion of chastity rather than make public her sexual history”. Kelly discusses documented cases of prosecutions for rape to identify the main features of the crime as perpetrated in eighteenth-century Ireland. Issues of property and class are explored, as well as incidences of child rape. Kelly concludes that “rape has been used in a conscious way by men throughout history to confine women”, creating an “environment in which women were not able to function free of fear”. This article is an extension of the same author’s “The Abduction of Women of Fortune in Eighteenth-Century Ireland” in Pp 7-43.

Type: Note

Gould, Peter. ‘What is the News from Lisbon?’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 156-57..

A note requesting any reader with information on how news of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was received in Ireland to contact the writer who is working on the subject.

Type: Article

Elias, A. C. Jr. ‘Dublin at Mid-Century: The Tricks of The Tricks of the Town Laid Open.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 108-119..

This article gives an account of an eighteenth-century pamphlet titled, The Tricks of the Town, which purports to describe the city of Dublin in the early 1750’s. In fact, the city described in The Tricks of the Town is not Dublin at all, but rather London in the late seventeenth-century. The Dublin pamphlet is, except in a few instances, a reprint of a 1746 pamphlet of identical title about London, which in turn is a reprint of a 1699 pamphlet titled The Country Gentleman’s Vade Mecum. The text includes a detailed description of the alterations made to the Dublin edition from the London 1746 edition.

Type: Article

Douglas, Aileen. ‘Mrs. Dingley’s Spectacles: Swift, Print and Desire’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 69-77.

In his Journal to Stella, Jonathan Swift is concerned with the idea of ‘seeing’ — a theme expressed through the symbolism of Mrs. Dingley’s spectacles. Just as Lemuel Gulliver’s spectacles allow him to see, or rather, to have “an understanding of human identity”, Rebecca Dingley is the third party, “who both sees and does not see”. Swift, knowing that Dingley read his letters to Stella — since Stella’s eyes were too weak to read them herself—made Dingley’s participation integral to the text. “The rhetorical structures of the Journal dictate what Rebecca Dingley sees”. The article also explores Dingley’s eyes as crucial to Swift’s expression of sexual desires, for “her inclusion dissipates the Journal’s sexuality by turning it into a joke”. While it is evident that Swift did not initially intend the Journal for publication, it is within the framework of the epistolary novel that the subject “comes into being”, and provides “a space for passion which might not otherwise exist”. Finally, Douglas draws comparisons with Richardson’s Pamela to suggest that “the Journal to Stella shares with eighteenth-century novels an understanding of the erotic possibilities of print”.

Type: Article

Archibald, Douglas. ‘Edmund Burke and the Conservative Imagination’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 127-147.

According to Douglas Archibald, the ‘conservative imagination’ of Edmund Burke resides in a fragile balance between vision and realism, contrasting with a personal longing and impulsiveness hinging on hysteria. “Burke defines the conservative imagination in its moments of excess as well as in its moments of insight and harmony. He is our model of the pathology of that imagination as well as of its strengths.” Archibald discusses Burke’s background as an Irish catholic of no connection or wealth, who despite his insight and unwavering faith in tradition and the party, was the political underdog in Irish politics and subsequently suffered political and personal defeat. Archibald concludes that the often ‘apocalyptic’ characteristics of Burke’s ‘conservative imagination’ are felt also in the writings of Swift, Pope and W. B. Yeats.

Type: Article

Lurbe, Pierre. ‘Epsom as emblem: John Toland’s Description of Epsom.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 129-136..

This article discusses The Description of Epsom (1711) by John Toland, a far lesser known work than his ‘scandalous’ Christianity not Mysterious (1696), and a surprising departure from his usual Continue reading Vol. 9: Lurbe, Pierre.

Type: Article

Silke, John J. ‘Bishop Coyle’s Pious Miscellany’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 114-128..

Irish catholics writing in the eighteenth century believed there was a ‘common cause’ between catholicism and the Irish language. The fact that Anthony Coyle, bishop of Raphoe wrote his Collectanea sacra: or Continue reading Vol. 9: Silke, John J.

Type: Article

Ross, Bianca. ‘Of Prejudice and Predilection: Lady Morgan and her ‘Annals of St. Grellan’’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 99-113..

This article discusses the problems associated with Lady Morgan’s use of Irish history in The O’Briens and the O’Flahertys: A National Tale (1827). Of Continue reading Vol. 9: Ross, Bianca.

Type: Article

O’Brien, Gillian. ‘”Spirit, Impartiality and Independence” The Northern Star, 1792-1797’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 7-23.

The ‘increasingly literate and politicised society’ of eighteenth-century Ireland demanded a quick and efficient method of communicating, and thus influenced the increase in the number of newspapers being published in Ireland in the latter half of the century. At the same time, the strong growth in the publishing industry in Belfast concerned Dublin Castle, particularly when it came to one newspaper, The Northern Star, which went on sale in January 1792. This article discusses the appearance and makeup of The Northern Star in detail and considers its impact on its readers. The shareholders were predominantly members of the United Irishmen of Belfast and O’Brien explains how an extensive distribution system was developed throughout the island to spread United Irish opinion to as many people as possible. In late eighteenth-century Ireland, the purchase of The Northern Star was as potent a symbol of freethinking, independent citizenship as bearing arms.

Type: Article

Carey, Daniel. ‘Swift Among The Freethinkers’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 12 (1997), pp 89-99.

Jonathan Swift’s ongoing ‘literary battles’ with freethinkers impelled him to use a variety of rhetorical strategies to combat the threat which freethinkers posed to Anglican orthodoxy and to Swift’s political position as a Tory. Continue reading Vol. 12: Carey, Daniel.

Type: Article

Kennedy, Máire. ‘The Distribution of a Locally-Produced French Periodical in Provincial Ireland: The Magazin à La Mode, 1777-1778’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 83-98..

By the eighteenth-century, the Irish booktrade was firmly established with a complex system of distribution channels and trading networks, linking Dublin booksellers Continue reading Vol. 9: Kennedy, Máire.

Type: Article

Murphy, Seán. ‘Irish Jacobitism and Freemasonry’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 75-82..

Only recently have historians recognized the subject of Jacobitism in Ireland, and the history of Freemasonry has been even more overlooked. Formerly believed to have originated in England, Irish Freemasonry has been shown Continue reading Vol. 9: Murphy, Seán.

Type: Article

Mac Craith, Mícheál. ‘Filíocht Sheacaibíteach na Gaeilge: ionar gan uaim?’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), pp 57-74..

[Summary of an article in Irish] Jacobite poetry in the Irish language has for too long only been considered within the terms of reference of Gaelic literature. To Continue reading Vol. 9: Mac Craith, Mícheál.

Type: Article

Lowe, N. F. ‘Mary Wollstonecraft and the Kingsborough Scandal’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 44-56..

In October 1797, the family of one of Ireland’s wealthiest peers, the Earl of Kingston, was involved in a scandal alleging adultery, incest and murder. A few weeks prior to Continue reading Vol. 9: Lowe, N. F.

Type: Article

Kelly, James. ‘The Abduction of Women of Fortune in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 7-43..

The abduction of women of fortune, which took place at least intermittently between the fifth and the nineteenth centuries in Ireland, was particularly prevalent in the eighteenth century. Stiff Continue reading Vol. 9: Kelly, James.

Type: Article

Geoghegan, Vincent and Yves Le Juen. ‘An Early Work by James MacGeoghegan: Oeuvres mêlées en Latin, Anglois et François sur divers sujets en prose et vers.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 8 (1993), Pp 59-72..

This article discusses a little-known text by James MacGeoghegan, author of the famous History of Continue reading Vol. 8: Geoghegan, Vincent and Yves Le Juen.

Type: Article

McCormack, W. J. ‘Eighteenth-Century Ascendancy: Yeats and the Historians’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 159-181.

This article looks at present and historical usages of the terms ‘Anglo-Irish’ and ‘Protestant ascendancy’, attempting to determine their first appearance in the English language. According to McCormack, this poses a Continue reading Vol. 4: McCormack, W. J.

Type: Article

Sherry, T.F. ‘The Present Horrid Conspiracy: Dublin Press Coverage of Two Political Trials in the Early 1720s.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 143-157.

This article examines how the Dublin newspapers reported two political trials in London in the early 1720s, the treason trial of Christopher Layer and Continue reading Vol. 4: Sherry, T.F.

Type: Article

Fagan, Patrick. ‘The Dublin Catholic mob (1700-1750)’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 133-142.

This article discusses the frequent riots on Dublin’s city streets in the first three decades of the eighteenth-century. According to Fagan, these incidents went virtually undocumented by the major Irish newspapers, which had Continue reading Vol. 4: Fagan, Patrick.

Type: Article

Hick, Vivien. ‘The Palatine Settlement in Ireland: The Early Years’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 113-131.

In April 1708, forty-one Lutherans and Calvinists, led by Lutheran Minister Joshua de Kocherthal, arrived in London from the Rhinepfaltz, seeking refuge from the ravages of the French invasion in the Continue reading Vol. 4: Hick, Vivien.

Type: Article

Kelly, James. ‘The Anglo-French Commercial Treaty of 1786: The Irish Dimension’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 93-111.

This article discusses the constitutional, political and commercial significance of the 1786 Anglo-French treaty in Ireland. Kelly analyses the correspondence between Dublin and London during treaty negotiations and examines Continue reading Vol. 4: Kelly, James.

Type: Article

Mokyr, Joel and Cormac Ó Gráda. ‘The Height of Irishmen and Englishmen in the 1770’s: Some Evidence from the East India Company Army Records’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 83-92.

This article compares the heights of 1,000 Irish and English men recruited for service in India by Continue reading Vol. 4: Mokyr, Joel and Cormac Ó Gráda.

Type: Article

Mac Gill-Fhinnein, Gordon ‘Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir” (“The Story of the Great Fool”)’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 75-81.

This article, which is in Irish, gives an account of one of the most famous stories in the Irish tradition, “The Story of the Great Fool”. Continue reading Vol. 4: Mac Gill-Fhinnein, Gordon

Type: Article

Lyons, J.B. ‘Sylvester O’Halloran, 1728-1807’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 4 (1989), pp 65-74.

Sylvester O’Halloran was a surgeon, antiquarian and prolific letter writer, whose publications contributed to the medical advancement of Ireland in the eighteenth-century. He was one of the few who managed to turn the prohibition on Continue reading Vol. 4: Lyons, J.B.