Ciska Neyts
PhD Student
Biography
Originally from Belgium, I hold a BA and MA in Early Modern History from the KULeuven. In 2010 I graduated with honours from Trinity College Dublin with an MPhil in Reformation and Enlightenment studies. I started my PhD funded by the Irish Research Council in October 2010 under supervision of Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer and intend to submit at the end of the summer of 2013.
Thesis title
Copying the Continent: the Irish and the ‘military revolution’ (1601-1649)
Research
My doctoral project studies the influence of continental military practices on the Confederate style of warfare during the wars of the 1640s. This project has taken me to libraries and archives in Belgium, Spain, the UK and Ireland. The first half of the thesis analyses the experience of Irish officers like Owen Roe O’Neill and Thomas Preston with continental tactics, technologies and logistics. The second half of the thesis measures the impact of this experience on warfare as waged by the Irish insurgent forced between 1641 and 1649. While explicitly studying the acculturation process of the Irish in the context of the debate about an early modern ‘military revolution’, it integrates the notion of ‘small war’ into the traditionally ‘grand war’ picture of early modern warfare.
Apart from the implementation of military principles in another theatre of war than where they originated and the implications this might have for the 'military revolution' debate, I am also very much interested in the role of private enterprise in sustaining the war effort, the connection between ‘small war’, ‘grand war’ and society at large, the military-organisational components of rebellions and the relationship between warfare and state formation.
Academia:
http://tcd.academia.edu/CiskaNeyts (external)
Research Papers:
- ‘“That nurserie of armes” – how the Irish learned to wage war the continental way (1587-1641)’ – Early Modern Student Seminar, Trinity College Dublin, 25 January 2013
- ‘Warfare during the outbreak of the 1641 rebellion (October 1641 – May 1642)’ – Postgraduate History Seminar, Trinity College Dublin, 16 February 2012.
- ‘A “popular revolt”? The outbreak of the 1641 rebellion in Counties Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford’ – CHS International workshop ‘Violence and Social Change’, TCD/ Northwestern University, Trinity College Dublin, 26-27 October 2011.
- ‘Irish siege warfare: the case of Garrett Barry’ – Research Seminar in Irish Literature and History, Leuven centre for Irish Studies, Leuven, 22-23 June 2011.
- ‘The Irish at Breda (1624-25)’ – PhD Seminar, Trinity College Dublin, 30 May 2011.
Publications:
- ‘Mapping the outbreak of the rebellion: robberies in County Cavan (October 1641)’ in E. Murphy, A. Margey and E. Darcy (eds.), The 1641 depositions and the Irish rebellion, Pickering and Chatto, London, 2012, pp. 35-49.