History (Theses)

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The supernatural in the Irish revolution 1916-1923
(2025-03-21) Ragan, Benjamin
This project's goal is to investigate the supernatural beliefs, practices, and anomalous experiences of Irish revolutionaries and their opponents during the period of 1916-1923. More specifically, along with providing a broad overview of their phenomenological characteristics, this project aims to determine the impact that supernatural beliefs, practices, and anomalies had on the way the revolution was fought and how it was remembered in the decades afterwards. Through a systematic identification and close reading of 15,000 pages of primary source documents from military and folklore archives, a database of supernatural memorates has been built comprising 4,416 entries tabulated and categorized on a wide range of demographic, phenomenological, parapsychological, and historiographical metrics. The following chapters provide a summative analysis of this data through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. This wealth of data suggests that the supernatural side of the Irish Revolution was far more diverse, impactful, and historically rich than has previously been supposed, and that it merits further concentrated research. Of the varieties of supernatural phenomena identified, this thesis will analyse in greatest detail extra-sensory perception, hauntings, apparitions, prophecies, and omens. This study contends that the supernatural shaped how the Irish Revolution was remembered and experienced, and furthermore, that these supernatural remembrances and experiences were often catalysed by trauma and had a significant and formative presence in the ideology of Irish revolutionaries.
Networks of necessity: the Clunes, Clare, and Connecticut connections
(2025-03-19) Halloran, Jane
This thesis will discuss the network connections that existed between a family from Tyredagh Upper townland in Tulla, County Clare, Ireland and Norwalk, Connecticut. Chapter 1 will discuss the conditions that existed in pre-famine Tulla, County Clare, Ireland, and the extent to which these conditions contributed to the re-settlement of several members of the Clune family from their clachan settlement in Tyredagh Upper to Norwalk Connecticut. Chapter 2 will discuss the creation of the reconstituted family settlement in Norwalk Connecticut by two family members and how this reconstituted and reconfigured settlement supported further family emigration for subsequent generations. This re-creation and re-imagination of this family settlement in Norwalk, CT was of key importance to this family in Norwalk as will be discussed throughout this thesis. Chapters 3 and 4 will discuss two members of this family, namely Dr. Thomas F. Clune and Mary E. Clune, both Irish American native Norwalkers who played important roles within their own families as well as within the local community as community leaders and business owners. Finally, the thesis will conclude with an analysis and summary of the important roles played by family members within the family and the wider community during the time period researched. The thesis will conclude with a short discussion of the unique aspects of Norwalk in relation to the Irish community that existed there and the need to further delve into specific families into specific locations in order to gain further insights into these Irish communities at home and abroad.
A study of the life and activities of Sir Stephen Edward De Vere of Curragh Chase, 1812-1904
(2024-10-17) McGrath, Julie
The focus of this thesis is on the life of Sir Stephen Edward De Vere. In some ways, he might be viewed as a peripheral figure in nineteenth-century Irish history. Although he did serve as a Member of Parliament for county Limerick in the early 1850s, his political career did not reach the heights of his contemporaries, such as William Monsell, or Thomas Spring Rice. As a literary figure, he was overshadowed by his younger brother Aubrey. However, a study of De Vere’s life and activities does throw light on such diverse and important topics of local and international history as emigration during the Famine, the national school system, the implementation of justice in nineteenth-century Ireland and the public lunatic asylum system. An examination of De Vere’s private and public life provides an insight into how members of the elite considered notions of religious and national identity. It allows for a closer examination of the ways in which some members of the Irish elite, who operated under a sense of national identity which was separate from the English, but still British, negotiated with the British State and with the Irish populace. The late nineteenth-century saw the decline of the elite in Ireland. De Vere’s staunch objections to any form of local governance in Ireland on the basis that it would erode what he felt was the legitimate claim to power of his class, provides the context for a study of how this societal change was witnessed in county Limerick.
Organised labour in Limerick City, 1810-1899
(2024-09-11) McGrath, John
This monograph identifies and describes the nineteenth century workers of Limerick who established and maintained societies, representing both individual occupational groups and multi-occupational alliances. The study defines the class identity of these organised workers, and the background and outlook of their local political opponents, describing popular political causes from the perspective of the organised workers. The nature of these organised labour societies, how they were formed and how they functioned, is examined in the context of similar societies in Ireland, Britain and beyond. The overall purpose of this thesis is to reveal how the urban Irish worker viewed the world around him.
A complicated birth: the Northern Ireland Ministry of Education, 1921-1925
(2023-10-25) Lindsay, Noel
The primary purpose of this thesis is to establish the extent to which the development of the nascent Ministry of Education (M.O.E.) in Northern Ireland (N.I.) was defined by its relationship with the Roman Catholic (R.C.) Church, the Protestant Churches, and the Irish Free State (I.F.S.) Government, 1921-1925. This work’s research will argue that the refusal of the Catholic and Protestant Churches to accept the non-denominational 1923 Education Act (also known as the Londonderry Act) is critical to understanding the genesis of the state’s education policy and the perpetuation of segregated education. This thesis will in turn assess how the ministry’s relationship with these groups helped to shape northern society. The ministry’s profound influence on N.I.’s process of state building and the consequences of its fraught, and often acerbic, relationship with the Free State Government will also undergo rigorous analysis. Due to the complicated and problematic history, of education in Ireland, this study will begin with an overview of its early history to point to the important trends and developments that were repeated in N.I. after 1920. How the Free State Government’s orchestrated heel dragging on the transfer of services (staff and documents) strained cross-border relations and diminished the M.O.E.’s capacity to administrate effectively will be examined. An investigation of the I.F.S.’s illicit payment of Catholic teachers in N.I. from February to August 1922, designed to undermine the M.O.E., will demonstrate how already fractious relations would worsen. This will also allow for an examination of how the Dublin Department of Education’s (D.O.E.) Gaelicisation of education influenced education policy and state building in both jurisdictions. The extended consequences for teachers, the perennial casualties throughout this period, and the future of teacher training on the island of Ireland, will be examined. Chapter 4 will assess the rationale behind, and the consequences of, the R.C. Church’s refusal to cooperate with the new ministry, and the Lynn Committee, which was tasked with proposing future structures for education in N.I. This will also provide context for its position in post-partition Ireland. Analysis of the Unionist government’s introduction of Promissory Oaths for teachers, and rules forbidding the exhibition of religious emblems in schools, will provide an understanding of the tensions that existed between the R.C. Church and the state. How the implementation of these policies exacerbated the extant belligerence of R.C. managed schools will be investigated, thus contributing to wider understanding of the Catholic authorities’ claims that they would not be treated fairly in the northern state. The Protestant churches’ relationships with the ministry were more complex, given that they were loyal to the state and the Crown and therefore sought to fight their collective battle from within the system. This thesis will examine the rationale for the clerics’ vigorous agitation to have the 1923 act amended to allow for segregated education. This study will argue that the Lynn Committee created their recommendations knowing that they would be rejected by Lord Londonderry. This was part of a long-term strategy to facilitate their later objections to the recommendations’ omission from the bill. Their rationale for a more regular and forceful use of the Orange Order to exert their considerable power to pressurise the government on their behalf will also be considered. The intricate workings of the triumvirate, consisting of the Protestant Churches, the Orange Order and the U.U.P., will be carefully examined to determine how they were interdependent on each other, while also being central to all negotiations, and their outcomes. Finally, this will show how the battle to amend the act saw the political demise of Lord Londonderry, and with it, the lost potential that non-denominational education had to offer for future generations.
Irish policemen in the Palestine mandate, 1922-1948
(2022-03-16) Gannon, Seán William
This thesis explores Ireland’s influence on and involvement in the policing of British Mandated Palestine and, through an examination of five distinct but interrelated aspects of the Irish experience, assesses Ireland’s impact on the policing of Palestine. Making use of an extensive variety of official and private papers, together with oral histories, it first examines the raising of the British Section of the Palestine Gendarmerie which, recruited from amongst the disbanding Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.) in 1922, marked the beginning of significant Irish involvement in Palestine’s policing. Official efforts to make this British Gendarmerie more politically palatable by obscuring the fact that it was being drawn from R.I.C. sources are explored as is the impact of its largely ‘Black and Tan’ composition on public perceptions of the force. Secondly, it looks at the British Gendarmerie as ‘an Irish Constabulary’, examining the extent to which, in terms of organisation and ethos, it was modelled on the R.I.C. and to which ‘Irish’-style influences were imported into its successor, the British Section of the Palestine Police (BSPP) in 1926. The factors which influenced Irish R.I.C. personnel to enlist, particularly the part played by the Republican campaign against R.I.C. personnel in 1922, are also explored. Thirdly, it evaluates claims that 1) the British Gendarmerie followed the example set by its Irish parent forces in terms of personal behaviour and professional conduct, and that 2) the emergence of what were termed ‘black-and-tan tendencies’ in the BSPP in the 1930s and 1940s was a consequence of its own R.I.C. roots. Fourthly, it analyses the factors which influenced Irish enlistment in the BSPP between 1926 and 1947, with particular focus on the postwar period during which almost half of all Irish enlistments occurred. Finally, the extent to which ‘Irishness’ shaped the personal perspectives and professional experience of Irish BSPP personnel in the postwar period is examined. Throughout the thesis, the implications of its findings for an understanding of some of the wider aspects of Irish and imperial history are explored.
From the hoof to the hook: an investigation of beef processor influence on Irish farm policy and politics, 1950-1986
(2021-06-11) O'Brien, Declan
This thesis traces the development of the Irish beef processing industry through its first thirty-six years from 1950 to 1986. It asks how and why meat processing firms became so influential in Irish farming, documenting the industry’s emergence during the 1950s, up to its ascendency by the 1980s. It details how beef processors benefitted from the patronage of Agriculture Minister, Charles Haughey, to overtake the live exporting of cattle in the 1960s as the country’s premier livestock enterprise; it outlines why the co-operatives were unable to survive in the beef business, even though the sector enjoyed significant EEC supports from 1973; and, finally, it explains how a small coterie of individuals came to dominate red meat processing between 1980 and 1985, and the extent to which this impacted the agricultural sector and the State. The importance of this latter development lies in subsequent government decisions on beef exports to the Middle East which exposed the State to losses of close to Ir£80 million following the near collapse in 1990 and 1991 of Goodman International. This study employs a two-pronged methodology which combines documentary evidence with oral testimonies from contemporary participants. This offers new and original perspectives on events such as the failure of the co-operatives to survive in beef and lamb slaughtering, and how this mirrored the experience of farmer-owned firms in Britain. This study also identifies the extent to which public funding and political patronage have been crucial to the growth of the beef industry since the mid-1960s, and how livestock policy in the 1970s and 1980s was formulated through the prism of beef processor needs, rather than that of the farmer, or the consumer.
‘We think considerable improvement should be made.’ Irish insanity and the Limerick District Lunatic Asylum, 1772-1900
(2021-04-08) Waters, Tríona
The focus of this thesis is the Limerick District Lunatic Asylum (LDLA hereafter), its interconnected institutions and the people who used them. Established in 1827, LDLA was Ireland’s first large-scale provincial district asylum established under the 1821 Lunacy (Ireland) Act. LDLA is an early and vitally important institution in the development of the District Asylum system. Though it echoes the treatments applied in other regional asylums, LDLA is in fact a flagship institution. As one of the first to experience the problems that bedevilled all Irish asylums – overcrowding, early problems with staffing, religious tensions, socio-economic pressures that were exerted on both the institution and the patient body – this thesis itself is an examination of an asylum that identifies and sets trends in Irish mental health history. An analysis of this institution’s surviving material forms the basis of this thesis offering an assessment of its ideological rationale and administrative operations. Through the lens of administrative files, snapshots of the active relationship with those receiving care are additionally provided. Some patient cases are used to explore key themes associated with asylum culture, thus allowing the local and individual experience to develop our understanding of Irish mental health care in the historical context. By emphasising the diversity of regional experiences and the significance of local contexts, this work demonstrates how Limerick is an underrepresented, yet very important site for analysis in the realm of mental health histories – it adds to our understanding of how the lunatic asylum was used by nineteenth century Irish society. Not only was treatment sought, it was expected.
Contested goals and competing interests: freedpeople's education in North Carolina during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1861-1875
(2020-12-18) Brosnan, AnneMarie
This dissertation examines the growth and development of North Carolina’s schools for the freedpeople during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, 1861-1875. In particular, it investigates who taught the freedpeople in North Carolina, why they elected to teach the former slaves, and the curriculum that was used in the state’s black schools. Recognising that the teachers of the freedpeople have been consistently portrayed as ‘Yankee schoolmarms’ in the historical literature, this dissertation begins by interrogating the life and work of northern white, southern white, and black teachers as three distinct yet interrelated teaching groups. To do this, this dissertation analysed a biographical database of over 1,400 teachers, known as the Freedmen’s Teacher Project, as well as a wide range of traditional archival sources, such as the teachers’ letters, memoirs, and diaries. Secondly, by conducting a textual analysis of nineteenth-century textbooks, including those that were created for the freedpeople in the aftermath of the Civil War as well as those that were used in antebellum northern common schools and subsequently donated to the freedpeople, this dissertation examines the curriculum that was used in North Carolina’s schools for the freedpeople. Ultimately, this dissertation finds that northern white, southern white, and black teachers perceived black freedom and the role of education in very different ways. While northern white teachers saw education as a means of reforming the former slaves, southern white teachers viewed black schools as instruments of social control. Black teachers, on the other hand, saw education as a vehicle for securing civil and political equality, as well as economic mobility. Given that most of the textbooks used in North Carolina’s post-Civil War black schools were written and produced by northern white men and women, they served to reinforce the northern white teachers’ reforming agenda and by portraying black people as inherently inferior, the textbooks’ primary function was to perpetuate the antebellum racial hierarchy. Ultimately, the contested goals and competing interests of teachers, institutions, and learners shaped the contours of black freedom in profound and lasting ways.
The evolution of Irish veterinary practice, 1700-1950
(2020-12-10) Flaherty, John
This thesis explores the evolution of Irish veterinary practice, especially with regards to cattle practice, over the course of some 250 years. It begins in the eighteenth-century, with a discussion on prominent farriers that practiced in Ireland, and culminates in the 1950s, when the veterinary surgeon finally gained approval with the Irish farmer. The main sources cover both the personal testimonies of individuals involved in the medical care of farm animals, farmers, cow-doctors and veterinarians, and documentary sources, which include, newspapers, veterinary registers, folklore collections, state papers, veterinary journals and publications that deal specifically with animal health care. The research identifies the first generations of veterinary surgeons to practice in Ireland and examines their backgrounds and their interactions with each other and with the wider body of animal care providers, namely farmers and traditional practitioners. It questions how these circumstances changed over time. The study considers the main factors that helped with the profession’s development during the nineteenth-century, and those that hindered this development. It examines why Ireland lagged well behind other European countries in attaining a veterinary college, and considers the role of traditional practitioners in the care of farm animals, comparing their proficiency with that of the contemporary veterinary surgeon. Although the profession made major strides during the nineteenth century, with legal recognition and improved standards of education and proficiency, it was hindered in making a significant contribution to Irish farming and society because of internal divisions within the profession, a lack of state support, limitations in treating animals other than the horse, Irish farmers’ dislike for change where the benefit of such was not clear, and a continued preference for traditional methods, many of which were highly effective. However, the veterinary surgeon ultimately achieved a prominent position in Irish agriculture because of the emergence of a more proficient practitioner, a better understanding by farmers of scientific methods, a greater involvement in public health initiatives, and scientific advances, especially the development of effective, life-saving drugs. Generally, the experience of the veterinary profession over the period in question is a combination of both continuity and change. The period was dominated by a practitioner, deficient in training, who had few effective treatments to offer the farmer. Change began to accelerate during the latter part of the nineteenth century, when a better educated vet became more proficient, and was cemented in the 1950s with new opportunities in state employment, and by a conjunction of new scientific advances.
The holy wells of County Kilkenny in terms of documentary coverage, location, ritual practice and onomastic concept
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2018) Ó Dálaigh, Pádraig
Not alone is water crucial for human existence but it is fundamental to human religious practices worldwide. This thesis examines holy-well definition which establishes that holy wells are generally natural sources of water which are situated in an outdoor setting near or beside the ruins of a local parish church. The local patron saint of the parish is normally the dedicatee of the well which is visited on the saint’s feastday. The saint (50 different saints are encountered at 113 wells in Kilkenny) is deemed to be the guardian of the well and is entreated for a cure or for some other intention by local pilgrims who perform rituals, many of which are of a penitential nature. Pilgrims recite prayers, drink the water, bathe the affected body part in the water and, in most instances, the penitential exercises are as important a consideration for pilgrims as the hoped-for cure. Catholic elements such as Mass, prayers, hymns, visiting nearby church ruins are fused with beliefs and legends from a distant past such as rounding, stone-worship, tree-worship and leaving a propitiary offering, mainly a rag, on a nearby tree. It is not clear if these latter, seemingly non-Christian aspects are due to pre-Christian/early Christian inheritance (evidence for which is very limited) or to modern folk-beliefs, but the majority of the rituals appear to be Christian in origin. The thesis examines four ‘surveys’ pertaining to the 183 wells of County Kilkenny which stretch in time from 1837 to 1969, namely, the early Ordnance Survey, the works of William Carrigan, the Folklore Collections and the work of Owen O’Kelly. The present survey synthesises all of these works and paints a modern picture of holy-well worship in the county by scrutinizing these and up to 900 other academic sources as well as conducting very important modern-day practical fieldwork on a representational sample of wells, while many gaps have been filled by local informants with whom I corresponded concerning wells which I did not get the opportunity to visit. The thesis shows that it is in the nineteenth century when a considerable 123 Kilkenny wells are only first documented, with many more wells being first dated in the twentieth century, there only being a mere handful of Kilkenny wells being first documented between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. The holy wells are examined as onomastic entities, the various locational aspects of the wells are explored and hagiographical details of 50 saints are provided which link a saint to the vicinity of the well. The various rituals are examined in detail as are the folk beliefs and legends, both hagiographical origin legends and the more common belief legends. We also discover that the possible influence of paganism is very limited indeed, with only a few possible instances being cited countrywide, none of which relate to Kilkenny. Not alone were holy wells visited for religious reasons but they remained a prominent element of popular medication into the nineteenth century and the examination of the 37 different ailments for which cures were sought at Kilkenny wells bear testament to this, sore eyes being the most common ailment. It would appear for the entire time frame during which the wells are documented that the people who did so were largely antiquarian in inspiration and that the practice of visiting the wells was on the wane, so much so that although best documented in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they represent a form of ritual activity which was in decay throughout that period.
Aliens in wartime: reactions and responses to foreign nationalities and minorities in Ireland during the First World War
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2013) Buck, William J. E.
Ireland was a diverse society made up of various nationalities and ethnic minorities before the twentieth century. Relationships and tensions have developed between these various ‘foreign’ groups and Ireland’s host nation over the centuries. However, these relationships were put under pressure with the start of the First World War. Emergency legislation introduced by the British Government at the start of the Great War and the public hysteria, often created by Britain’s right-wing press, politicians and the official propaganda network all helped to fuel the flames of anti-alien fervour in Britain. During the first two months of war the daily lives of Ireland’s ‘enemy aliens’ were hugely affected, with anti-German rioting in Dublin and the arrests and detention of hundreds of enemy aliens throughout Ireland. Foreign accents and names would be treated with great suspicion by the host nation, leading to innocent citizens being wrongfully arrested or attacked by their neighbours during the first month of the war. Even though the British government alien legislation affected Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, labelling them enemy aliens and restricting their freedoms and movement within Ireland, the phases of public hysteria and rioting that occurred in Britain during the four and a half years of war was not evident in Irish public opinion and their actions did not imitate their British counterparts. This study will examine the reasons behind the differing reactions in Ireland to enemy and friendly alien nationalities, especially Belgian refugees who were forced to seek refuge in Britain and Ireland due to the German invasion of Belgium, while also analysing how ethnic minorities like Ireland’s Jewish communities were affected by the British government’s wartime alien legislation. It will highlight the different alien individuals and professions that were targeted by Dublin Castle, the military and police authorities, while also emphasising the inconsistencies and communication problems that existed between the country’s decision-makers, when implementing the wartime legislation and the granting of travel and residence permits. By using the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers (CSORP), local and national newspapers and County Police Monthly Reports, this research will examine the treatment of aliens in Ireland during the First World War, by the British government, authorities in Ireland and the Irish people. The study will also examine the public generosity and sympathy towards enemy aliens from their Irish neighbours, as well as the frustrations and animosity felt by the Irish public towards friendly alien nationals residing in the country. In summary, the research to date portrays the various relations created and destroyed between Ireland’s alien residents and the host nation, as a result of the First World War.
‘Rivers of ink’: searching for authentic representations of the Holocaust – words, pictures and the stories they tell
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2018) Devlin, Terry
The Holocaust haunts the European mind, and its reverberations continue to this day. However, for those of us who were not there, all our knowledge, understanding and experience of this event is expressed in representations of one form or another. We need to understand how these representations operate and how they impact on our sense of the event. The Holocaust is confused with other, similar programmes run by the Nazis. It is frequently seen as a new kind of evil, or a special case in the terrible history of human violence. However, we must be wary of how we designate it. The evil at the heart of the Holocaust is profoundly human. Any other categorisation risks making it seem non-human and therefore beyond the world ethical evaluation. Representations are texts like any other, and so operate in contexts. Using Derrida, Zelizer and Benjamin, forms of representation are explored. We seek an authentic representation of the lived experience of the Holocaust. There is a discussion of authenticity and how it can operate differently for different cohorts of people. There is also a discussion of the critical demands that seek to limit how we discuss or what we say about the Holocaust.The thesis considers the nature of factual, fictional and photographic representations. Each is subject of a critical appraisal that discusses their modes of operation, and how these impact on the representations they offer. Examples are explored to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches, which includes a discussing of gendered suffering and the dangers of falsifying what happened.No one form of representation is sufficient to represent the breadth and scale of the Holocaust. The only way to measure the authenticity of a work is against a context of other works and other formats dealing with the same issue.
The evolution of Limerick City’s fife and drum band tradition 1840 to 1935
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2017) Mulcahy, Derek
This thesis examines the evolution and activity of fife and drum bands in Limerick city between 1840 and 1935. The topic was chosen because of the author’s involvement in St Mary’s Fife and Drum Band since 1976 and because of the cultural and social contribution the bands have made to the life of Limerick city, a subject with is virtually unexplored up to now. The stages of the development of the bands are discussed over a period of 95 years, from their foundation in the temperance movement of the 1840s, the period of O’Connell, to Parnell and on to the formation of the Free State. The changes in instrumentation, uniforms, accommodation and organisational ability is discussed, and how this has developed over the decades. Equally important is the growing political involvement of the bands, especially from the second half of the nineteenth century until they abandoned politics in 1935. The sources used are mainly newspapers, local and national, as the only band records are those of St Mary’s Band, which are very valuable in this thesis as they survive from 1922. Oral interviews, while pertaining mostly to the period after 1935, provide some valuable evidence, given as it is by people who have long experience of the fife and drum tradition in Limerick. The pride and passion involved in playing and supporting these bands, especially in discussion of competition and of past members is very evident in both the oral and documentary sources, and this alone is justification for the study.
The life and networks of Pamela Fitzgerald, 1773-1831
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2017) Mather, Laura
This thesis assesses the life of Pamela Fitzgerald. Crucially, it will attempt to tell the story of Pamela Fitzgerald from her own perspective, rather than the viewpoint of her husband, which has dominated for so long. The structure of the thesis follows the chronology of Pamela’s life from her birth, around 1773, to her death in 1831. Chapter one considers the period from 1773 to 1792. The main issue of this chapter is the debate about Pamela’s birth. Moreover, the chapter places Pamela’s early life within the networks of Madame de Genlis, the political backdrop of the early French Revolution and, particularly the Reign of Terror, the main factors in both Pamela’s departure from France and her marriage to Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The second chapter focuses on Pamela’s experiences in Ireland between 1793 and 1797. This chapter intertwines Pamela’s domestic and political lives, assessing her relationship with the Fitzgerald family network, her life as wife and mother, and her involvement in radical politics. The third chapter covers the pivotal year in Pamela’s life: 1798. This chapter analyses the build-up to the 1798 Rebellion, and Pamela’s and Edward’s involvement. It traces the manner in which Pamela coped with the Edward’s death and the circumstances in which she found herself. The fourth chapter encompasses the final thirty two years of Pamela’s life, covering her continuing relationship with the Fitzgeralds, her second marriage, to Joseph Pitcairn, her contacts with Madame de Genlis and, more generally, the challenges of her life in Hamburg, England, Austria and France in the early nineteenth century. Pamela died, in 1831, in the Hôtel Danube on the outskirts of Paris.
‘One law, many justices: an examination of the magistracy in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1830-1846’
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2016) Hartigan, Robert
This thesis examines the role of magistrates in pre-Famine Ireland, examining their relations with one another, with central government, and with local society. It considers the role of the magistracy in enforcing law and order and also examines precisely which members of the gentry controlled rural affairs through the office of magistrate. This thesis further assesses the effects of central government encroaching upon the local autonomy of the landed magistrates in the pre-Famine decades and explores the reaction of local magistrates to the incursion of Stipendiary Magistrates into their sphere of power. The sense of identity of landed magistrates is considered and questions raised as to its essentially local focus. Questions are also asked about the partisan nature of the enforcement of law and order locally and the effect the magistracy had on suppressing agrarian unrest. To address these question government reports, correspondence with the Chief Secretary’s Office, local newspapers and the personal papers and memoirs of individual magistrates are all used to place the local magistracy in the wider socio-economic context of the early nineteenth century. The study concludes that the landed gentry, using positions such as that of magistrate, redefined its identity and authority in rural Ireland during the pre-Famine period. In doing so some members of the gentry actually used the advances of central government (which were intended to reduce their power) to their own advantage, facilitating the re-establishment of their authority over local society.
Class, religion and society in Limerick City, 1922-1939
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2016) Keane, Thomas
This study focuses on the civil society which existed in Limerick City between the signing of the Treaty and the outbreak of the Second World War. The purpose of the thesis is to examine this civil society outside of the overtly political society. It contrasts the lifestyles of the working poor as opposed to the merchant class and the clubs and organizations which they belonged to by examining the housing crisis in the city, and particularly in Garryowen, in 1922 and the establishment of a police force by the merchant class in the city in 1922. The study also maps the rise and decline of the Gaelic League within the city as a cultural signifier of national identity from the early heady days of the late nineteenth century to the gradual decline following independence in 1922. The Protestant imperial ethos and its decline, as well as the rise of the new Catholic middle class in the city, have also been examined through the medium of an elite boat club. The study also focuses on the temperance movement and its journey from its protestant roots to its dominance by Jesuits and the influence of the Redemptorist Archconfraternity of the Holy Family. One locality in the city, the Boherbuoy (An Bóthar Buí), fondly known as The Yellow Road, came in for special recognition for its influence on working-class rugby football as well as its allegiance to St Michael’s Temperance Society, the Boherbuoy Brass and Reed Band and the Dominican Church. The connections between all of these organizations have been examined from the viewpoint of the social capital which they generated and the horizontal and vertical networks of association which operated within them. The study is based on research of archives both private and public. It has used local and national newspapers, journals and interviews with people who had memories of the period. It also includes reminiscences by the author of conversations with his father and grandfather who were involved in events of the period. Secondary sources were also frequently used and are contained in the bibliography.
A spirit of emulation: the transformation of sport in North Munster, 1850–1890.
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2009) Hayes, Thomas
Naaman and the Centurion - 2 Kings 5 and Luke 7
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2014) Shelton, John
The Gospel of Luke’s is indebted to the Elijah-Elisha material from 1 and 2 Kings. The centurion story of Luke 7:1-10 shares several similar details with the Naaman story of 2 Kings 5. A few scholars have recognized the possibility that the centurion story may be another example of Luke’s reliance upon of Elijah-Elisha material. Yet, not much had been said regarding such a possible connection. The purpose of this dissertation was to analyse the centurion story and the Naaman story to determine if literary dependence existed between them. This dissertation began by reviewing scholarship regarding literary imitation in the Ancient Near East and the use of the Elijah-Elisha material in Luke-Acts. Based upon this review of scholarship, a methodology for establishing literary dependence was submitted. This methodology included categories of plausibility, similarities, and classifiable and interpretable differences. Using this methodology, the story of the centurion and the story of Naaman were analysed. Two other analyses of passages in Acts (the conversions of the Ethiopian eunuch and of Cornelius) revealed that the story of Naaman was employed in these stories as well. This not only helped establish precedence within the corpus of Luke-Acts for the use of the Naaman story by the centurion story in Luke 7, but this repeated use of the Naaman story also functions within Luke-Acts’ larger theme of the inclusion of the Gentiles. The dissertation concluded that Luke 7:1-10 is literarily dependent upon 2 Kings 5, and that this dependence is evidence of the greater use of the Naaman story found in key places in Luke-Acts.
A terror to evil doers: The NSPCC and industrial schools in Kilkenny 1927-1937
(Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2014) Mackey, Jamie
This thesis examines the role of the Kilkenny, Carlow and Queen’s County Branch of the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty in the committal of children to industrial schools during the period 1927- 1937. In addition, this study addresses the social landscape in Kilkenny and in this regard it documents the role of national and local Catholic social commentary on social issues within the Diocese of Ossory.

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