Eamon Darcy
‘The 1641 depositions and contemporary print culture’
IRCHSS scholar
Abstract for MBSR conference:
Entitled, ‘Politics, Pogroms and Print: The 1641 depositions and contemporary print
culture’ this paper will chart the entry of the 1641 depositions into the public domain
and illustrate general readership practices of the seventeenth century. The 1641
depositions comprise of 3,140 witness statements on the outbreak of rebellion in
Ireland on 23 October 1641. Due to lurid and gruesome accounts contained within,
they became the chief attestation for the hotly contested massacres of protestant
settlers by native Irish Catholics. They also provide evidence for historians of print
culture and as such are a much under-utilised source. Some of the testimonies outline
general readership practices, perceptions of the book as a social object and offer a
unique perspective on the complex relationship between oral and literate culture in
Early Modern Ireland.
Therefore, through the medium of the 1641 depositions, this paper will trace the
interaction between oral and textual cultures in Ireland. This will be followed by an
analysis of the Remonstrance of diverse remarkable passages concerning the Church
and Kingdom of Ireland (1642). The Remonstrance offered the first ‘official’ account
of the Irish rebellion that drew extensively from the 1641 depositions and appended
seventh-eight transcriptions of these witness testimonies. Written by Henry Jones,
head of the deposition commission, the text was shaped by the author’s own
experience of the rebellion and political convictions. Through the juxtaposition of the
1641 depositions and the Remonstrance this paper will analyse the transmission of
manuscript sources into the printed domain and illustrate external influences on this
process. Finally through an examination of other publications that drew on the
Remonstrance this paper will suggest how other authors read the text. Thus, this study
will recreate the reception of texts, from both a public and private perspective, and
suggest the author’s role in influencing contemporary audiences.