The Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies
(Faculty of Humanities, the Queen’s University of Belfast)
Invites you to the following conference:
The Long Eighteenth Century: the Physical Record
The School of Music, the Queen’s University of Belfast (Botanic entrance)
Tuesday 14 September 2004
9:45 Registration and coffee
10:30-1:05 PLENARY SESSIONS
10:30 Professor Graham Gargett (UU) "The Long Eighteenth Century: the Physical Record"
11:00–1:05 Institutional Collections
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Trevor Parkhill (Ulster Museum) Eighteenth-Century Sources in the Ulster Museum
Valerie Adams (PRONI) PRONI Sources Relating to the Long Eighteenth Century
Robert Mills (Librarian,Royal College of Physicians of Ireland) The Archival
Collections of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland
Donal Moore (Waterford City Archivist) "Long Been a Place of Great Trade":
Sources for the Long Eighteenth Century in Waterford City Archives.
1:10-2:00 LUNCH (provided on site)
2:00-3:30 Parallel Sessions
Session A) Collecting with a Purpose
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Catherine Ferris (NUI Maynooth) Music Collections of the Royal Irish Academy of
Music, Dublin: The Sons of Handel and the Anacreontic Society
Anne Dempsey (QUB) Music in the Armagh Cathedral
Frank Ferguson (QUB) The Politics of Collection: Thomas Percy in Ireland
Session B) Access to the Past
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Joe McLaughlin (University Archivist and Rare Books Curator, UU Coleraine) The
Derry and Raphoe Collection at McGee
John Bergin (UCD) Records of Irish Parliament and Privy Council in the Eighteenth
Century
Mark Keane (UCD & Galway Community College) Roman Catholic Hymnody in
Ireland from 1800-1840
3:30-4:30 TEA and Informal Reports from the floor about research projects or collections
4:30 -5:30 PLENARY SESSION, Electronic Libraries
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Paul S. Ell (CDDA, QUB) CDDA and A Comprehensive Electronic Library for
Ireland
Peter Foster and Mark Holland (Publisher) (Thomson-Gale) The Eighteenth Century
Collections Online Project
Speakers may attend for no fee; others intending to attend the full day should register their
name with Sarah McCleave (s.mccleave@qub.ac.uk) by 9 September in order to pay £10
(UK currency please) at the door. Late registrants must pay £12. The fees cover catering
costs -- so please register early so we can get the numbers right. Those with food allergies
should advise me asap. Most papers are scheduled for 30 minutes, including questions.
Those who have requested shorter slots have their names in italics. Those needing to arrange
parking should contact Iris Mateer, i.mateer@qub.ac.uk or Audrey Smyth,
audrey.smyth@qub.ac.uk by 9 September.
ABSTRACTS
‘The Long 18th Century – the Physical Record’
A Conference organised by the
Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies
The Queen’s University of Belfast
14 September 2004
School of Music
Adams, Valerie (PRONI)
‘PRONI Sources Relating to the Long Eighteenth Century’
This paper will provide an overview of PRONI sources relating to the 18th century – their
range and extent. The state of play as regards cataloguing and the opportunities for
calendaring will also feature.
Bergin, John (UCD)
‘Sources for Irish Parliament and Privy Council in the Long Eighteenth Century’
The surviving records of parliament and privy council are mainly printed. These comprise the
journals of the houses of commons and lords and the statutes (all frequently used), and the
proclamations of the privy council (consulted much less often, though to 1714 conveniently
abstracted in Robert Steele's bibliography). Grave obstacles are presented by the destruction
of the manuscript records of the privy council (in 1711 and 1922) and of parliament (in
1922). Nonetheless, many of the losses can be made good by using public records in London
and surviving items scattered through public and private collections in Ireland and elsewhere.
Other avenues of research are indicated by the expanded English Short Title Catalogue,
which brings to light much interesting material such as printed bills.
Dempsey, Anne (Sperrin Integrated)
‘Music in the Armagh Cathedral’
An overlooked collection of music in the Armagh Cathedral provides evidence of
"antiquarian" interests in mid-nineteenth-century Northern Ireland. This collection,
containing a high proportion of sacred and secular music in printed and manuscript form by
composers such as Maurice Greene, G.F. Handel, William Boyce, Arcangelo Corelli and
Jeremiah Clarke, had its origins in the formation of the Armagh Musical Society and
Cathedral Orchestral Society in the mid-nineteenth century. The Cathedral’s interests are
represented by the sacred music in the collection, but the function of the high proportion of
secular – and particularly instrumental – music in the collection was the subject of an earlier
MA dissertation (QUB, 2003).
Abstract not by author
Ell, Paul S.
‘CDDA and a Comprehensive Electronic Library for Ireland’
A discussion of part of future projects. For further information, see
http://www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/
Ferguson, Frank (QUB)
‘The Politics of Collection: Thomas Percy in Ireland’
This paper will explore Thomas Percy’s role as a collector of literary works in the late
eighteenth century in Dromore, Ireland. It will argue that behind Percy’s façade of being an
Anglican bishop and gentleman scholar there was a profound conservative political
motivation to uphold British Establishment values at a time of social crisis in Ireland and
Britain in the 1790s. This is manifested through his manipulation of the literary circle that he
created around himself and the bestowal of patronage upon those whom he felt were
deserving of advancement, usually writers who shared similar politics. I will examine how
expressions of aesthetic taste and literary collection are bound up with political and cultural
anxieties. I will pay particular attention to resources held in the Percy Collection at Queen’s
Belfast. This includes part of Percy’s own library, an excellent indicator of his system of
patronage and cultural preferences, and an archive that offers much material to literary and
cultural historians to consider.
Ferris, Catherine (NUI Maynooth)
‘Music Collections of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin: The Sons of Handel
and The Anacreontic Society’
The library of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin contains a significant amount of
uncatalogued music, which was donated or bequeathed by private musicians, teachers,
collectors and various musical societies and organisations. Within this category of the
repository are the collections of The Anacreontic Society (c.1740 – 1865), a private amateur
orchestral society, and The Antient Concerts Society (1834 – 63), a choral society. The latter
incorporates music from its antecedent society The Sons of Handel (c.1790 – 1824).
This paper describes the extant scores and manuscripts of the collections of The Sons of
Handel and The Anacreontic Society held in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, assesses the
repertoire of each and considers the forces available in this period thereby providing an
insight into the music scene in Dublin in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth-century.
Foster, Peter and Mark Holland (Thomson-Gale)
‘The Eighteenth Century Collections Online Project’
Eighteenth Century Collections Online is a comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth
Century, the world's largest library on microfilm of the printed book. As a result of this most
ambitious digitization project, over 150,000 volumes published between 1701 and 1800 are
available online. This project allows the full-text searching of more than 33 million pages of
material, providing new research opportunities in ways previously unavailable.
Titles included in Eighteenth Century Collections Online are based on the English Short Title
Catalogue bibliography and are sourced from the holdings of the British Library, as well as
other national, university, research, public and private libraries. Eighteenth Century
Collections Online not only offers full-text searching but also many levels of metadata, which
enable researchers to study and contemplate the importance of this extraordinary century in
fresh, new ways. The value of this collection is apparent in its full-text search capabilities,
digital functionality and its inclusion of hard-to-find material in every academic discipline.
This project reinforces Thomson Gale's continued commitment to making primary documents
available electronically and joins the Times Digital Archive 1785 - 1985 and soon to be
released Making of Modern Law in the Gale Digital Archives.
Further Information:
Peter Foster
Thomson Gale
+44 (0)774 710 6707
peter.foster@thomson.com
Thomson Learning EMEA
High Holborn House
50-51 Bedford Row
London WC1R 4LR
T: +44 (0)20 7067 2500
F: +44 (0)20 7067 2600
Keane, Mark (UCD & Galway Community College)
‘Roman Catholic Hymnody in Ireland from 1800-1840’
This paper represents an extension on the author’s dissertation-in-progress (UCD),
‘Roman Catholic Hymnody in Ireland from 1850 to Vatican II.’
McLaughlin, Joe (University Archivist and Rare Books Curator, UU Coleraine)
‘The Derry and Raphoe Collection at Magee’
A particularly fine example of an 18th-century library of printed materials.
Mills, Robert (Royal College of Physicians of Ireland)
‘The Archival Collections of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland’
The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland is the oldest medical institution in Ireland and is
celebrating its 350th anniversary this year. The College has amassed a considerable collection
of archives, all relevant to the history of medicine in Ireland, from various sources over the
years.
Records produced by the College itself include a few items from the period prior to the
granting of the second Royal Charter in 1692. Then there exists a complete series of minute
books from 1692 to the present and registers of Fellows, Licentiates and Members covering
the same period. Committee proceedings books, correspondence books, library records and
accounts have all been preserved since the early 19th century.
Records of some medical organisations with which the College has been associated also form
part of the collection. These include the Medico-Philosophical Society, the Cow Pock
Institution, the Dublin Sanitary Association and the National Association for the Prevention
of Tuberculosis.
Extensive records of Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital and St. Ultan’s Hospital and pre-20th century
records of the Westmoreland Lock Hospital have also been deposited with the College.
The College also preserves the private papers of Sir Dominic Corrigan (1802-80), the most
prominent Catholic physician in Ireland in the 19th century, and the personal diaries of Dr.
Kathleen Lynn (1874-1955), the pioneering paediatrician and active revolutionary politician.
The most frequently consulted item in the College archives is the "Kirkpatrick Archive",
which is a unique collection of biographical material on over 10,000 Irish doctors from
earliest times to the 20th century, compiled by the distinguished medical historian, Dr. T. P.
C. Kirkpatrick. This source is in constant demand from genealogical researchers.
Various other miscellaneous items, such as lecture notes, some Indian Hospital records, a
surgical instrument maker’s sales book, etc., also form part of the College’s archive
collection.
A large part of the collection is currently in storage and will not be accessible until mid-2005
as the College building is undergoing major renovation. One result of this renovation is due
to be the creation of a specially designed archive store, something that the College has not
had before. This will enable all the archives to be safely stored in one place and properly
organised and catalogued and made available to researchers in a manner that has not been
possible in the past.
Donal Moore (Waterford City Archivist)
‘ "Long Been a Place of Great Trade": Sources for "The Long Eighteenth Century" in
Waterford City Archives’
Waterford City Archives has managed to gather together a considerable amount of material
for the period before the 1840s. Of course much of this material originated from within
Waterford Corporation, but the Archives has an active accession policy and is striving to be a
repository for all surviving records of the entire city. On occasion, material has been
"repatriated" from outside the city.
In many ways the 18th Century was a golden age for Waterford. As the title of this talk
suggests, international trade brought wealth to at least some of the city’s inhabitants. This
prosperity can be seen in the fine public and private buildings including the construction of
two cathedrals (under the direction of one man-surely a unique feat) in the final years of the
century.
The Archives holds a complete (actually overlapping) set of Minute Books for Waterford
Corporation covering the entire period in question. There are also excellent records of the
Corporation’s landed estate dating back to the 1670s. Maps of the city and its environs, as
well as charts of the harbour, date back to the mid-eighteenth century. An area of particular
interest for which there are excellent records extant is the history of the city’s first bridge
over the River Suir from the 1780s onwards.
Other records held by the Archives include:
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Waterford Chamber of Commerce dating back to its establishment in the 1780s
Waterford Harbour Board from its inception in 1816
Waterford Lying-In Hospital,
Several small local charities whose existence precedes the establishment of the
Workhouse system.
Much of the material held has been very under-utilised for any type of research. Even where
it appears that the records have been used, it is often surprising how little has actually been
extracted from the records in comparison to what they contain.
Parkhill, Trevor (Ulster Museum)
‘Eighteenth-Century Sources in the Ulster Museum’
The Ulster Museum has an impressive range of sources, including artefacts, documents and
paintings, relating to the eighteenth century. These have most recently been shown to best
effect in its 1990 exhibition ‘Kings in Conflict’ and in the 1998 exhibition on the bicentenary
of the 1798 rebellion, ‘Up in Arms!’ The scope of this material and its availability for
research will be the subject of this paper.