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New online Irish Country House research guide

 

The Special Collections and Archives Department at the Glucksman Library, University of Limerick (UL), Ireland, has launched a new online research guide on the Irish Country House, featuring students’ coursework from the module HI4168 The Country House in Ireland: Class, Gender and Culture. This module, led by Dr Karol Mullaney-Dignam at UL’s School of History and Geography, explores the history of the country house in Ireland from its rise in the 1700s to its decline in the 1900s, providing an intimate look at the social, cultural and material lives of owners, occupants, and providers. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, this module considers everyday life in country houses, including style and luxury, women’s roles in the home, the importance of wealth and status, the link between city and country life, class differences between servants and owners, as well as how goods were sourced and social connections made.

Final (fourth)-year History students taking this elective module in 2024/25 visited Archivist Anna-Maria Hajba in the department reading room to choose an archival letter, or set of letters, from the wide variety of estate paper collections at the Glucksman Library. Based on their chosen primary source, the module assignment required them to produce: a document analysis (what the document is about, and why it is important); observations on their research journey (how they went about their research, what they found interesting and difficult, and why); the context of the document (the collection it comes from, the history of the item); a transcription of the item; and a bibliography of the primary and secondary sources referenced. Samples of three students’ work from this module were then repurposed to create the new online Irish Country House research guide.

Dr Kirsten Mulrennan, Archivist for Engagement, Exhibition and Outreach, works closely with UL faculty to embed its collections on a variety of academic programmes at the university, and to create a range of online research resources on the department website specialcollections.ul.ie. This module, and its associated research guide, provides a useful example of the potential of collaboration between university faculty and library staff. The guide is designed to provide working examples for incoming students, tackling any ‘archival anxiety’. It demonstrates how archival collections can be embedded in academic programmes, both to enhance student coursework, and to build transferrable skills, such as critical thinking and information literacy.