The inspiration for the painting was a ballad or poem ‘Hellalyle and Hildebrand’ that appeared in ‘A second batch of Danish ballads’ translated by Whitley Stokes from Danske Viser, vol. iii, 353, published in Fraser’s Magazine 51 (January–June 1855), pp 88–9. Whitley was the son of Burton’s friend William Stokes, and his note accompanying the … Read more
Frederic William Burton was born in 1816 in Corofin, Co. Clare, the third son of an amateur landscape painter. The family moved to Dublin, where in 1826 Burton attended the Dublin Society Schools, starting out as a painter of miniatures and portraits. He mixed in antiquarian circles that included George Petrie, Samuel Ferguson, Eugene O’Curry, … Read more
Whitley Stokes’s translation into English of the Danish ballad describes the heroine Hellelil, who is actively involved in her downfall, the loss of her chastity, and the death of both her lover and herself. The poem tells of how her ‘father gave me a glorious guard: twelve noble knights were my watch and ward’. Hellelil … Read more
The late 1720s and early 1730s were a period of economic despair in Ireland, as trade stagnated and a succession of poor harvests brought famine and disease. Against this background, anger at bankers and a general distrust of the ‘monied’ section in society became recurring themes in a vigorous pamphlet literature, which considered the causes … Read more
The pamphlet was the most important vehicle for public debate in mid-eighteenth-century Ireland. Pamphlets published in the period between the mid-1720s and the Lucas affair of 1749 were notable for the prominence given to economic issues. The British connection, which had been central to pamphlet debate in Ireland in the early part of the eighteenth … Read more