This interdisciplinary research project seeks to identify and catalogue music collections pertaining to Irish country houses and to interpret the historical context within which these have been assembled, utilised and maintained since the 18th century.
While ostensibly providing a framework for investigating elite musical observances, findings of this project will ultimately enhance scholarly and public understandings of the social history of music in Ireland within a broad range of contexts. It is hoped that this will generate a greater appreciation of the cultural heritage value of musical sources held previously and currently in private ownership and facilitate greater access to these holdings in the future.
Project manager: Dr Karol Mullaney-Dignam
Selected Publications
‘Useless and extravagant? The consumption of music in the Irish country house’, Consuming the country house, ed. Jon Stobart & Andrew Hann (English Heritage, 2013)
‘An “Italian palace” in Co. Roscommon: the creation of Rockingham House, Boyle’, Co. Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society Journal (2013), pp 12-16
‘Irish country house music collections: Birr Castle, Co. Offaly’, Brio: Journal of the International Association of Music Libraries, UK and Ireland Branch, vol. 49, no.2 (2012), pp 23-36.
'Music and the Irish Country House', Ignite at NUI Maynooth, June 2012, Video
‘“Spacious and splendid”: music, dancing and social life at Glin Castle, 1781-1854’, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, vol. xiv (2012), pp 16-37.
Music and dancing at Castletown, Co. Kildare, 1759-1821 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011).
‘The Music in the Irish Country House project: origins and objectives’, The Irish country house: its past, present and future, ed. Terence Dooley & Christopher Ridgway (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011), pp 166-183.
Castletown House image courtesy of Castletown, Co. Kildare
