History through eyes of early travel writers

A word of warning to history fans. Before you go browsing Ireland Illustrated, 1680-1860, a new service from NUIG, make sure you’ve nothing else for doing, because it’s compelling stuff. This online database of 526 images and travel accounts, captures diverse views of Ireland over a 250-year period from 1680-1860. It has contributions from 53 manuscripts and printed works, including some that were neglected or rarely accessed until now. The 125 authors and artists whose work features in this database are long dead but they have left an invaluable legacy, according to Professor Jane Conroy of the Moore Institute, Emerita Professor of French at NUIG. Ireland Illustrated is designed to assist researchers, students and people with an interest in local history, but even if you don’t fit any of those categories, it’s fascinating. It has been produced by a team at the Moore Institute for Research at NUIG under the stewardship of Professor Conroy and with the support of her colleague, Professor Dan Carey. It arose from a previous project on inter-cultural studies, much of which was travel-related, and dated mostly from the 17th to the 19th centuries, explains Jane, who’s originally from Rosmuc in Connemara – her father was a first cousin of the writer Pádraic Ó Conaire. After her Arts Degree in the then UCG, Jane studied at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne where she took her Doctorat ès lettres. She has been a member of the Royal Irish Academy since 2003. Travel has long been a source of interest to Jane who has written extensively on the subject, especially as it relates to history. Her colleague Dan is chiefly interested in why people travelled and what they got out of their journeys, while Jane is particularly curious about how these historic accounts captured people’s thoughts on Ireland, with a special interest in French travellers, given her background. Initially, she and Dan had decided to compile a book of travellers’ experiences, and it then evolved into the database, which offers an insight into how travellers to Ireland viewed the country and its people. To be included, their work had to combine text and pictures. “A book with text presents a certain idea of a country, but picture books are a better way of presenting it and they especially took off in the 19th century,” she says of illustrated accounts. “It became an industry for artists doing engravings, especially the 1800s.” There’s a brief biography of all those included, to give a context of their backgrounds and interests, and this offers a great profile of people who travelled in those centuries. Unsurprisingly, given the era, most are men.