Country house archives and the public good

The Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates, Maynooth University, in conjunction with the Heritage Council, is delighted to host a one-day seminar, 'Country House Archives and the Public Good'. With more than 10 speakers, this seminar builds on last years very successful event which examined collections in country houses more broadly. The event will take place on 8 November 2024 in Maynooth University.

All are welcome.

Schedule of proceedings

9.15- 9.45:

Registration

9.45-10.00:

Welcome by Virginia Teehan, Heritage Council & Dr Ciarán Reilly (CSHIHE, Dept of History, MU).

10.00-10.20:

Veronica Barry, The Irish country house archives project

10.20-10.40:

Julia Porier, Safeguarding your story: Best practice for archive care and preservation

10.40-11.00:

Fiona White, The Lucas Clements archive at Maynooth

Q& A

11.15 - 11.30:

Tea & Coffee

11.45-12.05:

Jon Stobart, Small stories and big pictures: learning from English country house archives.

12.05-12.25:

Violet Manners, Preserving the past and looking to the future

12.25-12.45:

Sarah Roller, Telling new histories: a new chapter for the British country house archive?

Q&A

13.00-14.00:

Lunch

14.00-14.20:

Alan Cox and Lesley Whiteside, The Ballinderry House archive project

14. 20-14.40:

Jeremy Hill, Monksgrange archives and who owns history?

14.40-15.00:

Aileen Spitere, Pageants, exhibitions, plant hunters and gardens: the diverse uses of a county house archive

Q & A

15.15-15.35:

Cathal Dowd Smith, Malahide Castle: the vanguard of public memory

15.35-16.00:

Olwen Purdue, Historic houses as global crossroads: exploring entanglements of local and global identities at Ulster's historic houses

16.00:

Closing remarks: Professor Terence Dooley (Head of History Department, Maynooth University & Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates).

About the speakers

Veronica Barry is currently an Assistant Professor of history at Dublin City University. Since 2020, she has worked with the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates, Maynooth University, most recently as a research on the 'Irish country house archives in private ownership' project which was conducted in association with the Heritage Council.

Alan Cox is a member of the Tyrrell family and is the current owner of Ballinderry House. The Tyrrell family have lived in Ballinderry House for more than 280 years.

Cathal Dowd Smith is the Curator & Collections Manager of Newbridge House and Farm and Malahide Castle and Gardens. He holds a degree in the History of Art and Architecture and History from Trinity College Dublin. Cathal is currently leading on a project to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Malahide Castle is public ownership.

Jeremy Hill manages Monksgrange Archives, one of the largest such collections in private hands in Ireland. Earlier careers were in aviation, thoroughbred breeding and the visual and performing arts.

Violet Manners knows the realm of Historic Houses across the UK well, being the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and grew up at Belvoir Castle. She has witnessed first-hand the increasing number of younger, more diverse and digitally savvy visitors who are ‘heritage-curious,’ a trend no doubt fuelled by popular Regency hits like Bridgerton. Motivated by this shift, she sought to create a solution that would benefit all generations and unite independent historic houses in one accessible platform. Violet is the Founder and CEO of the newly launched HeritageXplore. She is dedicated to champion the U.K.’s independent historic houses, showcasing their beauty and charm to a wider audience through this innovative new digital platform. HeritageXplore provides a discovery and booking service for independently owned heritage sites, making it easier for people to explore these hidden gems.

Julia Porier is the Book Conservator at Maynooth University Library and accredited member of ICRI. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Paper Conservation from Northumbria University, Newcastle in 2010. She worked as book conservator for the Derry and Raphoe Conservation Project with the University of Ulster until 2012. She then joined the Chester Beatty, Dublin, as the Heritage Council conservation intern (2012-2013) and stayed on in her former role as Book and Paper Conservator until July 2024.

Olwen Purdue is Professor of Modern Social History at Queen’s University Belfast where she works on social class, power and agency in nineteenth and twentieth-century Ireland. She is the author of two monographs: The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites 1878-1960 (Dublin, 2009) and Children, Poverty and the Poor Law in industrial Belfast 1880-1914 (Liverpool, 2024). She also works on public history particularly in difficult or contested contexts, and founded and directs the Centre for Public History and the MA in Public History at Queen’s University. Her latest edited volume, Public History in Ireland: Difficult Pasts, was published by Routledge in 2024.She sits on the Council of the Royal Historical Society and the Board of Directors of the Irish Museums Association. She is a member of the project board for National Museums NI’s redevelopment of the Ulster Museum, was historical advisor to the Titanic Belfast and a member of the advisory panel for the Ulster Museum’s Troubles and Beyond gallery. She is currently collaborating with the Smithsonian Institution and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum on dealing with difficult pasts.

Sarah Roller manages the policy and engagement work of Historic Houses, the not-for-profit membership association representing 1,450 Grade I and II* listed historic houses and gardens across the UK. Before joining Historic Houses in early 2022, she worked in various history and heritage sector roles, including in communications, digital media and collections/curation work. She is a trustee of the Heritage Education Trust, and holds an MPhil in Public History & Cultural Heritage from Trinity College Dublin.

Aileen Spitere is an archivist currently cataloguing the archive at Annes Grove in North Cork for the OPW. Prior to that she spent many years working for Library and Archives Canada researching and locating material relating to Canada in The United Kingdom and Ireland.

Jon Stobart is Professor of Social History at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has been studying English country houses for more than 20 years and has a particular interest in systems of supply, material culture and ideas of comfort. He has written and edited several books on these topics, most recently Comfort and the Eighteenth-Century Country House (2022) and Global Goods and the Country House: Comparative perspectives (2023). Jon is currently running an international research network on country house servants.

Fiona White is an archivist with responsibility for the landed estate archives project at Maynooth University. She is a graduate of UCD with a Degree in English Literature and Linguistics and a graduate of the UCD Archives and Records Management Postgraduate program. Prior to coming to Maynooth University, Fiona had worked for many years in the areas of Archives and Records Management in both the Public and Private Sectors. She is currently working on processing the archives of the Lucas Clements estate in county Cavan.

Lesley Whiteside an historian and archives consultant, has in recent years concentrated on the Irish country house and its agricultural environment. Her consideration of country house archives, ‘Private archives in the Irish country house: a personal perspective’, appeared in Country House Collections, edited by Terence Dooley and Christopher Ridgway in 2021. Her latest book, Farming and society since 1700 in the barony of Carbury, Co. Kildare, was published last month. She is the archives consultant to the Monksgrange Trust and to the Ballinderry House archive, both of which feature in this conference.