There has been an upsurge of scholarly research devoted to life writing in recent years, given the contemporary world’s fascination with ideas of self-presentation and curation. However, there is a dearth of work on the topic regarding Ireland and the long eighteenth century. This project challenged such oversight, simultaneously analysing diary writing in an explicitly Irish and European context, combining the national with the international. A broader Enlightenment context permitted analysis of how Irish diarists both engaged in and set wider literary and cultural trends, highlighting shared experiences and differences. The Irish perspective allows for the exploration of the effects of such geographically contingent issues as colonisation, religion, and improvement upon diary composition, as well as the exploration of national identity from a female perspective. The project has also identified generic intersections, experimentation, and innovation in evidence, showcasing literary and cultural cross-fertilization, and incorporating innovative methodology on paratext.
The primary research questions for this project were as follows:
O1- How can we better understand the self in a national context, informed by transnational, European developments? What is the significance and impact of an overriding sense of communal, collective identity versus individual identity?
O2- How do Irish diaries disrupt conventional understandings of the genre?
O3- What patterns can be identified within and across generations in the construction of the female self? Are many of the anxieties and preoccupations of young people in the 18c still recognisable today?
O4- How do diarists engage with other forms of writing? Can analysis of manuscript paratext permit a better understanding of the relationship between diaries and posterity and the strategies for the achievement of an audience?
O5- Why have women’s achievements in the public and private sphere been overlooked, and how can we better integrate their lives into a central narrative, expanding our corpus of material evidence?
O6- How best can women’s diaries be used to inform the public’s understanding of 18c literature and life in Ireland, and to better empower young people?
Diaries represented an underexplored resource for understanding elite life in eighteenth-century Ireland, and the project has now expanded the conventional corpus of material evidence for understanding Ireland’s literature and culture, contributing to changing public narratives. The project strived towards inclusivity, and the new corpus incorporates diaries by women of all ages, incorporating perspectives of both young people and the elderly, allowing access to cross-generational voices. The project aimed to reconceptualise the diary form and reinvigorate international concepts of the diurnal self, transforming the field of life writing through the production and dissemination of a ground breaking monograph, based on the project’s findings.
