Amy Prendergast

PhD Student

amprende@tcd.ie

Biography

Amy studied English and French at NUI Galway before completing an MA in Modern Literary Studies at Queen’s University Belfast in 2008. She is currently a recipient of a PRTLI Government of Ireland scholarship for her doctoral studies in the School of English supervised by Ian Campbell Ross.

Research

‘The literary salon in the long eighteenth century: The changing nature of elite sociability in France, Ireland and Britain’.
An important example of associational life, the literary salon facilitated polite, mixed-gender gatherings among luxurious settings. Amy’s thesis examines the changing nature of elite sociability through this institution, and investigates its various manifestations in France, Ireland and Britain, examining cultural transfers, literary patronage and networks, material culture, and social change. Particular emphasis is placed on the salons of Elizabeth Vesey in Lucan, Co. Dublin, and Bolton Street in London, as well as that of Lady Moira on Dublin’s Ussher’s Island. These salons provide much information regarding literary life and elite society in eighteenth-century Dublin and London, as well as enabling an appreciation of the role of salon hostess as cultural intermediary.

Publications:

• “ ‘The drooping genius of our Isle to raise’: the Moira House salon and its role in Gaelic cultural revival,” Eighteenth-Century Ireland Journal, 2011.

Selected Papers:

• “ ‘You have among you imported more sense and virtue than I fear we are likely to repay you’: The Irish Bluestockings in London.” The London Irish in the Long Eighteenth Century. University of Warwick, April 2012.
• “ ‘Never was a flock so scattered for want of a shepherdess’: Elizabeth Vesey between England and Ireland.” Bluestockings: The Social Network, Swansea University, June 2011.
• “A French phenomenon embraced: the literary salon in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland.” The Future of Irish and Scottish Studies Postgraduate Symposium, RIISS, University of Aberdeen, Dec 2010.
• “Moira House salon: a site for Irish scholarship.” The Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society Annual Conference, incorporating the colloquiuom on France, Great Britain and Ireland: Cultural transfers and the circulation of knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment. University of Limerick, June 2010.
• “ ‘Bold Censor of a thoughtless age’: Samuel Johnson’s contribution to Bluestocking conversation.” ECLRNI Symposium, New Library at Queen’s University, Belfast, November 2009.