Dr. Peter Crooks
Associate Professor, History
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Peter Crooks and Keith Busby (eds), Philomena Connolly, The text of the Statutes of Kilkenny, 1366: an unpublished paper by Philomena Connolly (1947-2002), Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 2024
Peter Crooks and Ciarán Wallace, with David Brown and Gary Munnelly, How to Reconstruct a Lost Archive in the Digital Age: The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, The Fire of 1922, and the Archival Loss and Recovery Model (ALARM), Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique, 2024
Elizabeth Biggs, Peter Crooks, Paul Dryburgh and Lynn Kilgallon (eds), James Lydon, The Irish exchequer in the thirteenth century: an unpublished essay by James F. Lydon (1928-2013), Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 2024
Magna Carta Hiberniae: The Destroyed Manuscript Witness from the Red Book of the Irish Exchequer Text and Translation in, editor(s)Peter Crooks and Thomas Mohr , Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland: From Magna Carta to the Present, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2023, pp198 - 216, [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks, Elva Johnston, Timothy Murtagh, "For fear of oblivion": archival fragility and persistence from the Middle Ages to 1922 - and beyond, Analecta Hibernica, 53, 2023, p1 - 14
Taking Liberties: Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland in, editor(s)Peter Crooks and Thomas Mohr , Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland: From Magna Carta to the Present, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2023, [Peter Crooks and Thomas Mohr]
Peter Crooks, Brian Gurrin and Zoe Reid with Jessica Baldwin, Paul Dryburgh and Ciarán Wallace, The survivors: a photographic essay, Analecta Hibernica, 53, 2023, p301 - 353
The Charter Reforged: The Red Book, Materiality and Ireland's Magna Carta in, editor(s)Peter Crooks and Thomas Mohr , Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland: From Magna Carta to the Present, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2023, pp40 - 63, [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks and Lynn Kilgallon, 'Of Old Time Annexed to Your Crown': Documents on the Irish Parliament and the Crisis of 1441-2, Analecta Hibernica, Including the Report of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, 53, 2023, p97 - 123
Peter Crooks and Zoe Reid, with Jessica Baldwin, Ciara Fahy, Brian Gurrin, The salved records of 1922, Analecta Hibernica, 53, 2023, p15 - 58
Peter Crooks and Tom Mohr, Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland: From Magna Carta to the Present, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2023
Retrieved from the rubble: reconstructing Ireland's lost archive in, editor(s)Pamela Murray, Leah Humenuck, William Bennett and Lauren Moon-Schott , Mod Cons: Modern Conservation, Modern Conveniences, Modern Constraints [ICON Book & Paper Group Third Triennial Conference, 2021], London, Archetype Publications, 2022, pp46 - 53, [Zoë Reid, Jessica Baldwin, Peter Crooks, David Brown]
"Tyrannous Constructs" or Tools of the Trade? The Use and Abuse of Concepts in Medieval History in, editor(s)Jackson W. Armstrong, Peter Crooks and Andrea Ruddick , Using Concepts in Medieval History: Perspectives on Britain and Ireland, 1100-1500, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp3 - 14, [Jackson W. Armstrong, Peter Crooks and Andrea Ruddick]
Christophe Debruyne, Gary Munnelly, Lynn Kilgallon, Declan O'Sullivan, Peter Crooks, Creating a Knowledge Graph for Ireland's Lost History: Knowledge Engineering and Curation in the Beyond 2022 Project, ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 15, (2), 2022
David Brown and Peter Crooks, Beyond 2022 and the Hore Manuscripts at Ferns Diocesan Archive, The Past: The Organ of the Ui Ceinnsealagh Historical Society, (35), 2022, p24 - 45
Jackson W. Armstrong, Peter Crooks and Andrea Ruddick, Using Concepts in Medieval History: Perspectives on Britain and Ireland, 1100-1500, 1, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, 10.1007/978-3-030-77280-2pp
Colony in, editor(s)Jackson W. Armstrong, Peter Crooks and Andrea Ruddick , Using Concepts in Medieval History: Perspectives on Britain and Ireland, 1100-1500, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp51 - 71, [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks, Rescue the Records, Revisited, Irish Archives: The Journal of the Irish Society for Archives (50th Anniversary Issue), 27, 2022, p26 - 36
Peter Crooks, Zoe Reid and Ciarán Wallace, The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland: A century of Recovery from the 1922 Four Courts Blaze - and Beyond, History Ireland, 30, (3), 2022, p38 - 41
Peter Crooks and Ciarán Wallace, 'The Great Untilled Field': The Public Record Office of Ireland, 1867-1922, History Ireland, 29, (3), 2021, p46 - 49
Bureaucracy in, editor(s)Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja Goeing and Anthony Grafton , Information: A Historical Companion, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2021, pp342 - 348, [Peter Crooks]
Brian Gurrin with David Brown, Peter Crooks and Ciarán Wallace, People, Place and Power: The Grand Jury System in Ireland, 1, Dublin , Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, 2021
A Semantic Search Engine for Historical Handwritten Document Images in, editor(s)Berget G., Hall M.M., Brenn D., Kumpulainen S. , Linking Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries. TPDL 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12866, Springer, Cham, 2021, [Ngo V.M., Munnelly G., Orlandi F., Crooks P., O'Sullivan D., Conlan O.]
David Brown and Peter Crooks, "Now more valuable than ever before": Beyond 2022 and the Hore manuscripts at Ferns Diocesan Archive, The Past: The Organ of the Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society, 35, 2021, p24 - 45
Peter Crooks and Ciarán Wallace, The records of a country are its noblest inheritance': Beyond 2022-Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury research project, History Ireland, 28, (3), 2020, p48 - 51
Peter Crooks, Government, War and Society in Medieval Ireland: Essays by Edmund Curtis, A.J. Otway-Ruthven and James Lydon, 2nd edition (Trinity Medieval Ireland Series 2), 2nd, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2019, 1-407pp
On Bumper Crops and Stiffening Winds: A Bibliographical Essay, 2008-2018 in, editor(s)Peter Crooks , Government, War and Society in Medieval Ireland: Essays by Edmund Curtis, A.J. Otway-Ruthven and James Lydon, 2nd edition, Dublin: Trinity Medieval Ireland Series, Four Courts Press, 2019, pp1 - 21, [Peter Crooks]
The structure of politics in theory and practice, 1210-1541 in, editor(s)Brendan Smith , The Cambridge History of Ireland, vol. 1: 650-1550, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp500-531 , [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks David Green W. Mark Ormrod (eds), The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453: Proceedings of the 2014 Harlaxton Symposium, Donington, Shaun Tyas, 2016, 1 - 432pp
Peter Crooks and Seán Duffy, The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland: The Making of a Myth, 1, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2016, 1 - 446pp
Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons, Empires and bureaucracy in world history: from late antiquity to the twentieth century, 1, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016, 1 - 436pp
Empires, bureaucracy and the paradox of power in, editor(s)Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons , Empires and bureaucracy in world history: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp1 - 28, [Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons]
The Ascent and Descent of Desmond under Lancaster and York in, editor(s)Peter Crooks and Seán Duffy , The Geraldines and medieval Ireland: the making of a myth, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2016, pp233 - 263, [Peter Crooks]
Before Humpty Dumpty: the first English empire and the brittleness of bureaucracy, 1259-1453 in, editor(s)Peter Crooks and Timothy Parsons , Empires and bureaucracy in world history: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp250 - 288, [Peter Crooks]
The Plantagenets and empire in the later Middle Ages in, editor(s)Peter Crooks, David Green and W. Mark Ormrod , The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453, Donington, Shaun Tyas, 2016, pp1-34 , [Peter Crooks, David Green, W. Mark Ormrod]
Peter Crooks, Exporting Magna Carta: Exclusionary Liberties in Ireland and the World, History Ireland, 23, (4), 2015, p14 - 17
Peter Crooks, Review of English identity and political culture in the fourteenth century (Cambridge University Press, 2013), by Andrea Ruddick , Scottish Historical Review, 94, (1), 2015, p105-107
Peter Crooks, Review of Review of 'Michael Brown, Disunited kingdoms: Peoples and Politics in the British Isles, 1280-1460. Harlow: Pearson, 2013. Pp. xxi, 319 + 4 figures, 8 maps., The Mediaeval Journal, 15, (1), 2015, p145-147
Peter Crooks, Review of Crisis and Survival in Late Medieval Ireland: The English of Louth and their Neighbours, 1330-1450. By Brendan Smith. Oxford University Press. 2013. xviii + 260pp. £65.00., by Brendan Smith , History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 100, (341), 2015, p447-449
Peter Crooks, 'Magna Carta at Christ Church Cathedral', Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral , 2015, 1 - 10
Peter Crooks, Review of The Reign of Richard II: From Minority to Tyranny, 1377-97. Translated and annotated by Alison K. McHardy. Manchester University Press. 2012. xxiv + 344pp. £19.99., by Alison K. McHardy , History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 100, (341), 2015, p446-447
Peter Crooks, Review of The Imperial Moment (Harvard University Press, 2010), by Kimberley Kagan , European History Quarterly, 44, (1), 2014, p151-153
James the Usurper of Desmond and the origins of the Talbot-Ormond feud in, editor(s)Seán Duffy , Princes, prelates and poets in medieval Ireland: essays in honour of Katharine Simms, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2013, pp159 - 184, [Peter Crooks]
'Reconstructing the past: the case of the medieval Irish chancery rolls' in, editor(s)Felix M. Larkin and N.M. Dawson , Lawyers, the Law and History: Irish legal History Society Discourses and Other Papers, 2006-2011, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2013, pp281 - 309, [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks, CIRCLE: A Calendar of Irish Chancery Letters, c.1244-1509, https://chancery.tcd.ie/, University of Dublin, 2012
Peter Crooks, Constructing a "laboratory for empire": colonial Ireland from the Statute of Kilkenny to Poynings Law, SHISO [Japanese Intellectual Journal], 1063, 2012, p9 - 43
Peter Crooks, "Framing" the Anglo-Norman Invasion: Robin Frame on medieval Irish history and why it matters, History Ireland, 20, (3), 2012, p16 - 17
Peter Crooks, 'State of the Union: Perspectives on English Imperialism in the Late Middle Ages', Past and Present, no. 212, (Aug.), 2011, p1 - 40
'Scotland, Ireland, Wales: Late Medieval Ireland, 1166-1534', 'English Ireland', 'Braose', 'Lacy (in Ireland)', Robert E. Bjork, The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2007), 1st, n/a, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, [Peter Crooks]
'The Medieval Irish Town by A. J. Otway-Ruthven'' in, S. Duffy , Medieval Dublin X, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2010, pp299 - 311, [A. J. Otway-Ruthven]
Peter Crooks, Archives in Crisis, History Ireland, 18, (3 May/June), 2010, p10 - 11
Peter Crooks, 'Representation and Dissent: "Parliamentarianism" and the Structure of Politics in Colonial Ireland, c. 1370-1420', English Historical Review, cxxv, (no. 512), 2010, p1 - 34
Peter Crooks, 'Medieval Ireland and the Wider World', Studia Hibernica, 35, 2009, p167 - 186
'Negotiating Authority in a Colonial Capital: Dublin and the Windsor Crisis, c.1369-78' in, editor(s)S. Duffy , Medieval Dublin IX: Proceedings of the Friends of Medieval Dublin Symposium 2007, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2009, pp131 - 151, [Peter Crooks]
'Government, war and society in English Ireland: a guide to recent work', in, editor(s)Peter Crooks , Government, war and society in medieval Ireland: essays by Edmund Curtis, A.J. Otway-Ruthven and James Lydon, Dublin , Four Courts Press, 2008, pp353 - 375, [Peter Crooks]
'The Lecky Professors' in, editor(s)Peter Crooks , Government, War and Society in Medieval Ireland: Essays by Edmund Curtis, Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven and James Lydon, Dublin , Four Courts Press, 2008, pp23 - 53, [Peter Crooks]
'The "Calculus of Faction" and Richard II's Duchy of Ireland' in, editor(s)Nigel Saul , Fourteenth Century England V, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2008, pp94 - 115, [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks, Government, War and Society in Medieval Ireland: Essays by Edmund Curtis, A.J. Otway-Ruthven and James Lydon, Dublin, Four Courts, 2008, 1 - 407pp
Peter Crooks, 'The Background to the Arrest of the Fifth Earl of Kildare and Sir Christopher Preston in 1418: A Missing Membrane', Analecta Hibernica, Including the Report of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, 40, 2008, p1 - 15
Peter Crooks, 'Factions, feuds and noble power in late medieval Ireland, c. 1356-1496', Irish Historical Studies, 35, (140), 2007, p425 - 454
'Factionalism', 'Mac Murchadha, Diarmait', 'Racial and cultural conflict', 'Lionel of Clarence', 'Feudalism', 'Society, grades of: Anglo-Norman', 'Society, functioning of: Anglo-Norman', 'Anglo-Irish relations', 'William of Windsor', Sean Duffy, Medieval Ireland: an encyclopedia, New York, Routledge, 2005, [Peter Crooks]
Peter Crooks, '"Divide and rule": factionalism as royal policy in the lordship of Ireland, c. 1171-1265', Peritia: the journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, xix, 2005, p263 - 307
Peter Crooks, '"Hobbes", "dogs" and politics in the Ireland of Lionel of Antwerp, c. 1361-6: The Denis Bethell Prize Essay 2005', The Haskins Society Journal: Studies in Medieval History, ed. Stephen Morillo, xvi, 2005, p117 - 148
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Peter Crooks, Out of the Ashes, 2018-2021, 2018, Trinity College Dublin
Crooks, Peter; Mohr, Thomas; Marshall, Robert, Law and the Idea of Liberty: From Magna Carta to the Present, 25/26 November 2016, 2016, Christ Church Cathedral
Peter Crooks, David Ditchburn and Seán Duffy, The Irish-Scottish World in the Middle Ages, 18-19 September 2015, In:Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium (TMIS), 2015, Trinity College Dublin , Peter Crooks, David Ditchburn and Seán Duffy
Peter Crooks, From "Expansion of Europe" to "Hemispheric Interactions": Medieval Rulership in Eurasian Perspective, Medieval Rulership: Symposium in Honour of Seymour Phillips, UCD, 4 December 2015, 2015
Peter Crooks, Magna Carta in Ireland, The Magna Carta Conference, King's College London / British Library, 17-19 June 2015, 2015
Peter Crooks, David Green, W. Mark Ormrod, The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453: The Harlaxton Medieval Symposium 2014, July 2014, 2014, Harlaxton College, Grantham
Peter Crooks and Seán Duffy, The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland: The Making of a Myth, September 2013, In:Inaugural Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium (TMIS1), 2013, Trinity College Dublin
Peter Crooks, Evolution or Revolution: Debating the End of the Middle Ages in Ireland, Washington University in St Louis, April 2013, 2013
Peter Crooks, Before Humpty Dumpty: England and its Empire in the Late Middle Ages, New Angles on Empire: Global and Imperial History Trinity Term Workshop, University of Oxford: History Faculty, 11 May 2012, 2012, James Belich, John Darwin, Jan-Georg Deutsch
Peter Crooks, Empires: The Challenge of Collaborative Comparison, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington D.C., 2012, 2012, Dane Kennedy
Peter Crooks, EMPIRES & BUREAUCRACY: A Colloquium exploring the comparative history of European empires from Late Antiquity to the Modern World, 16-18 June 2011, 2011, Trinity College, Dublin, Peter Crooks
Peter Crooks, Crossing the race line in medieval Ireland: charters of English law in context, 2011
Peter Crooks, 'The past as a bucket of ashes? CIRCLE: A Calendar of Irish Chancery Letters, c. 1244-1509', History Ireland, 19, (4), 2011, p16 - 18
Peter Crooks, Review of Lordship in Medieval Ireland: Image and Reality. Dublin. Four Courts Press for the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement. 2007. , by Linda Doran and James Lyttleton (eds) , Irish Studies Review, 17, (2), 2009, p247-9
Peter Crooks, "The Exercise of Power": Late Medieval Ireland through Scottish Spectacles, University of Edinburgh, Department of History Seminar Series, University of Edinburgh, Spring 2009, 2009, School of History, University of Edinburgh
Peter Crooks, Review of Inquisitions and Extents of Medieval Ireland. Kew. List and Index Society, vol. 320., by Paul Dryburgh and Brendan Smith (eds) , Irish Historical Studies, May, 2009
Peter Crooks, Reconstructing the Past: Later Medieval Ireland and the Irish Chancery Project, UCD School of History and Archives Research Forum, Autumn 2008, University College, Dublin, 4 November, 2008, UCD School of History and Archives Research Forum, Autumn 2008
Peter James Crooks, Factionalism and noble power in English Ireland, c 1361-1423, Trinity College Dublin, 2007
Peter Crooks, Review of A nation in medieval Ireland? Perspectives on Gaelic national identity in the middle ages, by Thomas Finan , History Ireland, xiii, (1), 2005, p60-61
Research Expertise
Description
My primary research interest is Ireland and Britain in the Middle Ages (12th to 16th centuries). I have published widely on medieval Irish history and, arising from that research interest, on the wider 'English world' or 'Plantagenet empire' of which Ireland formed an integral part. I have also published on the history of empires and, recently, conceptual history. I am editor of the forthcoming the New Cambridge History of Britain, vol. 2: 1100-1500 (Cambridge University Press). I am Founding Director of the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland [https://virtualtreasury.ie/], an all-island and international legacy initiative from the Decade of Centenaries to recreate the Public Record Office of Ireland, and its collections, which were destroyed at the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in 1922. I was Academic Coordinator of the Trinity Long Room Hub's Multiannual Lecture Series entitled, 'Out of the Ashes: Collective Memory, Cultural Loss and Recovery' (2018 to 2021). Together with Seán Duffy (TCD), I established the Trinity Medieval Ireland Series (Four Courts Press), including a re-issue of the classic essays by Trinity historians Curtis, Otway-Ruthven and Lydon. The sixth volume in the series will be published in 2024. I am a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and Principal Editor of a 5-volume edition of the Irish Chancery Rolls, c.1300-1500, which will be published by IMC. In 2023, I co-edited the IMC journal Analecta Hibernica for a special issue on 'The Fire of 1922'. A digital Calendar of Irish Chancery Letters, 1244-1509, was launched in 2012.Projects
- Title
- Beyond 2022: Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury
- Summary
- An all-island and international legacy project for the Decade of Centenaries
- Funding Agency
- Project Ireland 2040 through the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
- Date From
- 1 July 2019
- Date To
- 31 December 2022
- Title
- Beyond 2022: Ireland's National Memory (PI, Peter Crooks; STEM co-PI, Séamus Lawless)
- Summary
- On 30 June 1922 the Treasury Room containing Ireland's documentary heritage dating back to the thirteenth century was destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion and fire at the Four Courts. On the centenary of that blaze in 2022, this project will launch a Virtual Record Treasury that reconstructs the nation's archives and its collective memories. In partnership with the National Archives of Ireland, the National Archives of the United Kingdom and other national and international institutions, Beyond 2022 seeks to ensure a lasting and inspirational legacy beyond the current decade of centenaries. The project has obtained major funding for a 24 month project (2017-2019) from Irish Research Council New Horizons Scheme (219,992.50). The centrepiece of the project is new an online resource - the Virtual Record Treasury - which will provide a digital reconstruction of the Record Treasury of the Public Record Office of Ireland as it existed in 1922, on the eve of the fire. This will become not only an essential platform for academic research but also a public resource with global reach and impact among the Irish at home and abroad. The Virtual Record Treasury will provide: -Data visualizations enabling researchers to explore the treasury of the Public Record Office and its collections -A complete inventory of loss and survival from the 1922 fire. -Digitizations of the surviving originals, transcripts and calendars. -Detailed guides to the significance of those collections from the thirteenth century to the Victorian era. -A vital hub linking replacement material held in archival repositories in Ireland and across the world. http://www.histories-humanities.tcd.ie/research/Beyond-2022/ Seed funding (6,000) was provided by Trinity's School of Histories and Humanities and the Making Ireland Research Theme
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council
- Date From
- 2017
- Date To
- 2019
- Title
- 'England's First Colony: Power, Conflict and Colonialism in English Ireland, 1361-1460'
- Summary
- This project will provide a case study of medieval colonialism in action. It explores political society and political culture in English Ireland (1361-1460). The resulting monograph will make a major contribution to the diachronic study of colonialisms. This research project takes as its subject 'Ireland in the Age of Intervention', so-called because the century between 1361 and 1460 witnessed intensive investment-military and financial-by the English crown in Ireland. The 'interventionist' era opens with the expedition to Ireland of Lionel of Antwerp in 1361, and peters out with the 'Declaration of Parliamentary Independence' in 1460, which has often been interpreted as an expression of 'separatism' on the part of the colonial community. This project uses English Ireland as a case study of medieval colonialism in action-that is colonialism as a process underway as distinct from the initial process of colonization, which in Ireland (as elsewhere) has attracted greater scholarly attention, perhaps because in the early stages of a colonial encounter ('first contact', settlement, and so on) social change is readily apparent, and identities and cultures have yet to inter-bleed and blur. But it is precisely the hybrid nature of colonial society in this later period that makes it so appealing as a subject of research.
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council
- Date From
- 2011
- Title
- The Irish Chancery Project (https://chancery.tcd.ie/)
- Summary
- This IRCHSS-funded project seeks to advance our understanding of the 'making of Ireland' between the high Middle Ages and the dawn of the modern era-one of the most formative periods in Ireland's past-by publishing on the web and in print an English calendar of the rolls of the medieval Irish chancery, c. 1216-1509. The chancery was a key organ of English government in medieval Ireland. Access to its records is, however, severely restricted. The original chancery rolls suffered a series of calamities from the 13th century, culminating in 1922 with the destruction of the last 123 original rolls. A Latin calendar produced by the Irish Record Commission (1828) does not compensate for their destruction: it was poorly edited and lacks an adequate critical apparatus. Moreover, it offers no English translations and the text is printed in 'record type', reflecting abbreviations in the original manuscripts. This project will remedy these deficiencies by reconstructing the chancery rolls from transcripts and calendars dating from 14th-19th centuries located in Ireland and England. The outcome will be a web-based English calendar, to be followed by a multi-volume printed edition. This project will revolutionise medieval Irish studies by providing both specialists and the general public with access to an unparalleled source of information. More generally, the project will generate interest from scholars working on administrative history in a Europe-wide context and on the 'Anglicization' of the British Isles in Middle Ages. It will also stimulate exciting comparative work across the medieval-modern divide on the adaptation (or 'creolisation') of metropolitan governing practices and values in a colonial context, and on the processes of state formation and cultural exchange in the British Isles and the early modern Atlantic world.
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
- Date From
- July 2008
- Date To
- July 2011
- Title
- 'Tyrannous Constructs' or 'Tools of the Trade'? The Use and Abuse of Concepts in Medieval History
- Summary
- This joint initiative between Trinity College Dublin, the University of Aberdeen (Dr Jackson Armstrong) and the University of Oxford (Dr Andrea Ruddick) has received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant Award (2017); the Trinity Long Room Hub Research Incentive Scheme (2015); and the Research Institute for Irish-Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen (2015). The project addresses itself to a set of meta-historical and methodological questions concerning the use and abuse of concepts in medieval history. It is through concepts that humans seek intellectually to arrange and order the world they experience. Consequently concepts are of fundamental importance to humanistic research, both as an aspect of research methodology and as a subject of historical investigation in their own right. Unfortunately, medievalists - especially late-medieval historians in the Anglophone world - have been slow to reflect on these matters. Indeed, medieval history generally is notable for its suspicion of certain 'master nouns' that have been labelled 'tyrannous constructs' because of their distorting effect on historical interpretations. The aim of this project is not so much to slay the tyrant as to expose the whole problem of conceptual history for discussion, exploring both the perils and the pay-offs of working with concepts. The project has established a network that will convene at a series of workshops held at Trinity College Dublin, the Universities of Aberdeen and Oxford. To focus the intellectual agenda of the working group, the project will concentrate its efforts on the insular world in the period c.1100-c.1500. The first of these meetings, funded by the Long Room Hub Research Incentive Scheme, met in Dublin in May 2016.
- Funding Agency
- RIISS Aberdeen; Trinity Long Room Hub; British Academy Leverhulme Small Grant Award
- Date From
- 2015
- Date To
- 2018
- Title
- Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium Series
- Summary
- The Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium (TMIS) was established by Peter Crooks and Seán Duffy in 2013 to make cutting-edge historical scholarship accessible to all persons interested in researching, teaching or learning about the history of Ireland in the Middle Ages. The series is published by Four Courts Press. The focus of the initiative is a biennial symposium at which leading historians from Irish and international universities are invited to examine aspects of a specified theme or historical problem. The symposium serves to promote a wider public understanding and enjoyment of medieval Irish history. The symposium seeks also to become a means of setting the agenda and research trajectory for Irish medievalism. TMIS1 took place in September 2013 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of the Great Earl of Kildare, examined the topic: 'The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland: The Making of a Myth'. The proceedings will be published in 2015 under the editorship of Peter Crooks and Seán Duffy. The symposium was funded by the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund and the publication received a generous subvention from the Trinity Association and Trust. TMIS2 takes place on 18 and 19 September 2013. To mark the 700th anniversary of the Bruce Invasion of Ireland, the symposium takes as its subject: 'The Irish-Scottish World in the Middle Ages'. This is a partnership initiative with the Ulster-Scots Agency (http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/) supported by the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund.
- Funding Agency
- ASSBF, Trinity Association and Trust, Ulster-Scots Agency
- Date From
- 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 etc.
- Title
- The James Lydon Lectures in Medieval History and Culture
- Summary
- It was in the millennium between the fall of Rome and the Reformation-commonly known as the 'Middle Ages'-that Europe emerged as something more than an idea, and many of the institutions, cultural forces and political ideas we associate with the 'modern' world were born. What is the continuing relevance of this era for contemporary Irish and European society? And how are we to understand medieval history and culture on its own terms, rather than through the distorting prism of presentist concerns? These are among the most urgent and problematic questions facing medieval scholarship today. The Lydon Lectures provide a platform for a distinguished lecturer to reflect on these issues and to convey specialist findings to a mixed audience of academic specialists, students and members of the public. Organized by the Medieval History Research Centre, the series is named for James Francis Lydon who died on 25 June 2013. The inaugural Lydon Lecture was Professor John Gillingham (Emeritus Professor of History at the London School of Economics) who spoke on the subject: 'War, Enslavement and Chivalry in Irish and European history' (21-23 October 2014). Professor Gillingham is an historian of extraordinary range, best known as author of the standard textbook on The Angevin Empire (1984; 2nd edn 2001), and the biography of Richard I ('The Lionheart') in the distinguished Yale English Monarchs series. Professor Gillingham has written a series of seminal essays on the history and historiography of medieval Ireland, many of which appear in his collected essays: The English in the twelfth century: imperialism, national identity and political values (2000). The second series of Lydon Lectures will take place in Autumn 2016 will be delivered by Professor Robert Bartlett FBA (St Andrews), who will speak on the subject: 'Dynasties: Family Politics in Medieval Europe'. Professor Bartlett is one of the world's most distinguished medievalists, author of The Making of Europe and England under the Norman and Angevin Kings.
- Funding Agency
- Trinity Long Room Hub
- Date From
- 2014, 2017, 2018 etc.
Recognition
Representations
Irish Manuscripts Commission
Digital Repository of Ireland, Expert Advisory Group
Royal Irish Academy, Historical Studies Committee
History: Journal of the Historical Association. Editorial Advisory Board
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Journal: Advisory Board
Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, Member
Irish Historical Society (Hon. Treasurer)
University of Bristol, International Advisory Board of the Centre for Medieval Studies
Awards and Honours
Roger Ellis Prize, Archives and Records Association
Trinity Innovation Award for Societal Impact
Keynote: Archives and Records Association 2023 Conference, Belfast
Keynote Address: The Fifteenth Century Conference, University of Bristol
Provost's PhD Award
Irish Research Council New Horizons Scheme Award
Long Room Hub Research Incentive Scheme: Tyrannous Constructs or Tools of the Trade. The Use and Abuse of Concepts in Medieval History
Keynote: International Commission for the History of Towns, 'Crisis in Urban Order'
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Mobility Fellowship
Past and Present Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research (£26,000)
Long Room Hub Research Incentive Scheme: Inaugural Lydon Lectures 2014 (3950)
Grace Lawless Lee Fund, TCD
Denis Bethell Memorial Essay Prize, The Charles Homer Haskins Society
James Ussher Research Fellowship, Trinity College, Dublin
Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund: Funding for Inaugural Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium on 'The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland', Sept. 2013 (3000)
Trinity Association and Trusty: Funding for Cataloguing of James F. Lydon Papers now deposited in TCD Manuscripts and Archives Research Library
CISCS Grant in aid of publication of Government, War and Society in Medieval Ireland (1125)
IRCHSS Thematic Funding for Irish Chancery Project (285,611.38)
Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund: Funding for the Second Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium on 'The Irish-Scottish World in the Middle Ages', Sept. 2015 (2000)
Gold medal in history, Trinity College Dublin
Grace Lawless Lee Fund: subvention in aid of publication of 'The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland', ed. with S. Duffy (2,000)
Grace Lawless Lee Fund: Award for 'Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland: From Magna Carta to the Twentieth Century (Conference Marking 800th Anniversary of Passage of Magna Carta to Ireland' (960)
Trinity Long Room Hub Research Incentive Scheme (3995)
Memberships
Irish Manuscripts Commission, Member
Irish Historical Society (Treasurer)
Marie Curie Alumni Association
Harlaxton Medieval Symposium Steering Committee
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Friends of Medieval Dublin (Honorary Secretary, 2008-2011)
Institute of Historical Research, London