Nick Maxwell The seditious library of Archibald Hamilton Rowan By Fergus Whelan Two years after the death of the United Irishman Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751–1834), his library at Rathcoffey House, Co. Kildare, was catalogued by Charles Sharpe of Dublin. The catalogue lists nearly 3,000 books and pamphlets. Sharpe declared that as well as ‘many very attractive volumes, … Read more
WOLLSTONECRAFT’S EXPERIENCES IN IRELAND HELPED INFORM HER RADICAL CLASS AND GENDER ANALYSES By Jenny McAuley In October 1786, the 27-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft travelled to Ireland to take up a new post as governess to the three daughters of Lord and Lady Kingsborough of Mitchelstown Castle, Co. Cork. Wollstonecraft hoped that the salary of 40 guineas … Read more
Mitchelstown Castle, Co. Cork, was the inheritance of Wollstonecraft’s employer, Caroline King, Lady Kingsborough. During 1777–8 her husband, Robert King, remodelled it in Palladian style and improved the estate with the assistance of Arthur Young, who described it in A tour in Ireland (1780). Robert and Caroline separated in 1789. Robert died as second earl … Read more
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) is revered by feminists as the author of A vindication of the rights of woman (1792), which advocated the rational education of women as a matter of public and national importance. She also published fiction, travel writing, criticism and educational books. While living in Revolutionary France in 1794, Wollstonecraft gave birth to … Read more
By Lucille Ellis Ennis in the early nineteenth century was characterised by crooked, narrow streets flanked by buildings of post-medieval and eighteenth-century origin. One of the first formal streets developed when in c. 1823 William Greene (d. 1842), a local attorney, built a sizeable house of rough-cut limestone on land owned by Bindon Blood (1775–1855) … Read more