Janet K. TeBrake Among the many resources available for historical study and research on nineteenth-century Ireland are the numerous personal narratives by women, the most common form of writing women have traditionally produced. One of the earliest and best known of the genre is the diary of Mary Leadbetter. Another noteworthy example is the journal … Read more
In 1829 a Dublin carman named Foley was charged with ‘furious driving’ in Sackville Street while going to post a letter for a gentleman in the Post Office. When asked what he had to say for himself, he pleaded with the magistrate, ‘Oh, Sir, these is Donnybrook times and everyone is merry now, if you … Read more
On the evening of 18 April 1894 a triumphant Horace Plunkett wrote in his diary: The meeting to inaugurate the lAOS [Irish Agricultural Organisation Society] came off and was brilliantly successful. About 250 present and thoroughly representative of all sides of Irish life. I spoke for 1 1/4 hours & spoke well. The movement is … Read more
The Terry Alt movement of 1828-31 has been one of I the least studied of pre-Famine rural revolts, partly because it was dwarfed by the great anti-tithe agitation with which it temporarily shared the stage at the outset of the 1830s. The name itself is obscure. According to the traveller John Barrow, writing in 1836, … Read more
The uses of literacy, the ability to read and write, are central to the construction of popular culture. Cultural historians have long been engrossed with the reading habits of ordinary people, hoping to find clues to their knowledge, beliefs, expectations and fantasies. Yet the forms and functions of popular writing have been largely ignored. This … Read more