Visualising Irish History

Abstract

Ireland’s visual Tradition long had been the academic stepchild of Irish Studies, an interdisciplinary field generally anchored in departments of history and English literature. Neglected or largely excluded until the last few decades of the twentieth century, Irish art has only recently been drawn into the mainstream of interdisciplinary study. The publication of several historically contextualised collections about the popular or fine arts in the 1990s,¹ in addition to the exhibition catalogues, monographs, and essays discussed in this chapter, demonstrate how scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds are now exploring the role visual representation plays in illuminating Ireland’s social, political, and cultural history. The inclusion of visual imagery in Irish Studies responds both to a shifting political climate and to new methodologies for describing and assessing Ireland’s fine arts Tradition. The revision of a narrowly nationalist Historiography that was hostile to cultural forms largely associated with a colonial élite, as well as the recognition of broad European, not just British sources, for Ireland’s art,² has generated an increasgly outward-looking nation’s interest in its arts inventory. Through the application of postcolonial and feminist theories, a new generation of critics has drawn both the popular and fine arts Traditions centrally into cultural studies scholarship.