Gillespie, Raymond 1955-

PERSONAL:

Born 1955, in Belfast, Ireland; son of Joseph Ernest and Annie Gillespie; married Bernadette Cunningham, 1984. Education: Queen's University, B.A., 1978; Trinity College, Ph.D., 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Rm. 53B, Rhetoric House, South Campus, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland. E-mail—raymond.gillespie@nuim.ie.

CAREER:

Writer, educator, historian. Civil Service, Dublin, Ireland, administrative officer, 1982-89, assistant principal, 1989-91; Maynooth College, Maynooth, Ireland, lecturer in history, 1991-95, senior lecturer, 1995—.

WRITINGS:

Colonial Ulster: The Settlement of East Ulster, 1600-1641, Cork University Press for the Irish Committee for Historical Sciences (Cork, Ireland), 1985.

Conspiracy: Ulster Plots and Plotters in 1615, Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies/Institute of Irish Studies (Belfast, Ireland), 1987.

Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland, Manchester University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(With wife, Bernadette Cunningham) Stories from Gaelic Ireland: Microhistories from the Sixteenth-Century Irish Annals, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2003.

Reading Ireland: Print, Reading, and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland, Manchester University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern, Gill & Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 2006.

(With Raymond Refaussé) The Medieval Manuscripts of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2006.

(With Stephen A. Royle) Belfast c. 1600 to c. 1900: The Making of the Modern City, cartography by Sarah Gearty, Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, Ireland), 2007.

Early Belfast: The Origins and Growth of an Ulster Town to 1750, Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society/Ulster Historical Foundation (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 2007.

EDITOR

(With Ciaran Brady) Natives and Newcomers: Essays on the Making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534-1641, Irish Academic Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1986.

(With Gerard Moran) A Various Country: Essays in Mayo History, 1500-1900, Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teoranta (Westport, County Mayo, Ireland), 1987.

(With Harold O'Sullivan) The Borderlands: Essays on the History of the Ulster-Leinster Border, Institute of Irish Studies (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1989.

(With Gerard Moran) Longford: Essays in County History, Lilliput Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1991.

(With Brian P. Kennedy) Ireland: Art into History, Town House (Dublin, Ireland), 1994.

Cavan: Essays on the History of an Irish County, Irish Academic Press (Portland, OR), 1995, 2nd edition, 2004.

The Proctor's Accounts of Peter Lewis, 1564-1565, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 1996.

Chapter Act Book of Christ Church Dublin, 1574-1634, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 1996.

(With Gerard Moran) Galway: History & Society, Geography Publications (Dublin, Ireland), 1996.

The First Chapter Act Book of Chirst [i.e. Christ] Church Cathedral, Dublin, 1574-1634, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 1997.

(With Myrtle Hill) Doing Irish Local History: Pursuit and Practice, Institute of Irish Studies (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1998.

(With Alan J. Fletcher) Irish Preaching, 700-1700, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2001.

(With Peter Clark) Two Capitals: London and Dublin, 1500-1840, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The Vestry Records of the Parish of St. John the Evangelist, Dublin, 1595-1658, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2002.

(With W.G. Neely) The Laity and the Church of Ireland, 1000-2000: All Sorts and Conditions, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2002.

Scholar Bishop: The Recollections and Diary of Narcissus Marsh, 1638-1696, Cork University Press (Cork, Ireland), 2003.

The Remaking of Modern Ireland, 1750-1950: Beckett Prize Essays in Irish History, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2004.

The Vestry Records of the Parishes of St. Catherine and St. James, Dublin, 1657-1692, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2004.

(With Andrew Hadfield) The Irish Book in English, 1550-1800, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(With Anngret Simms and H.B. Clarke) Avril Thomas, Derry-Londonderry, Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, Ireland), 2005.

(With Elizabeth FitzPatrick) The Parish in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland: Community, Territory, and Building, Four Courts Press (Portland, OR), 2006.

(With Martin Fanning) Print Culture and Intellectual Life in Ireland, 1660-1941: Essays in Honour of Michael Adams, Woodfield (Dublin, Ireland), 2006.

Contributor to books, including A Catalogue of the Maps of the Estates of the Archbishops of Dublin, 1654-1850, by Raymond Refaussé and Mary Clark, Four Courts Press, 2000; and Georgian Belfast 1750-1850: Maps, Buildings, and Trades, by C.E.B. Brett, Royal Irish Academy, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Raymond Gillespie was born in 1955, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Queen's University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1978, then continued his education at Trinity College, where he earned a doctoral degree in 1982. A writer, educator, and historian, he serves on the faculty of Maynooth College as a senior lecturer in history. He is particularly interested in the medieval and the early modern periods of Irish history, with an emphasis on social change. He is the author or editor of numerous books on Irish history, focusing in particular on religious and intellectual life, faith and devotion, and the records that were kept pertaining to any and all aspects of social interactions.

In Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland, Gillespie addresses the question of what people's beliefs were during the early modern period in Ireland. The book serves to offer readers a thorough overview of both the social and cultural history of the time regarding religion and all forms of faith. In researching for the book, Gillespie used a prodigious amount of source material, attempting to collect information that was fresh and gave a new perspective to the topic. Overall, Devoted People provides insight into how priests presented God's word during the early modern period, and reactions evident among parishioners, when priests felt they had properly negotiated various types of signs in order to validate what was perceived to be a holy message of either instruction or simple encouragement. Prophecies, astrological occurrences, and parallels to biblical stories were all used as indicators that a higher power was paying attention to human existence. Although Gillespie provides ample information regarding the ways in which people addressed questions of faith, he provides very little data that tie these phenomena to Ireland during this period in particular, such as links between the prophecies mentioned and where they originated. However, John McGurk, in a review for the Contemporary Review, stated that "Devoted People is meticulously researched, written in a lucid and readable style and deserving of a wider readership than students and teachers of early modern Ireland." Alan Ford, in a review for the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, concluded that the book "is a landmark study which opens up new territory in early modern Irish religious history and will … stimulate a lively debate both about methodology and about the precise development over time of early modern religious attitudes and beliefs."

Reading Ireland: Print, Reading, and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland addresses the social and cultural history of books in Ireland during the early modern period. Over the course of the volume, Gillespie looks at both reading and writing in Ireland, starting from the early part of the sixteenth century and continuing to the late portion of the seventeenth century. Print is a particularly interesting subject, given that printed words ultimately needed to capture various languages and dialects that were far more common in Ireland at that time. Since most of the early tales and histories were passed along from person to person as verbal anecdotes, it is natural that many Irish people would want collections of the stories and other information to save for later generations. Print also became more important as literacy spread across the country and more people were able to participate in this type of interaction. Gillespie goes on to discuss the history of the print trade, including the various vendors who made up the business as a whole, which included not just individuals working directly in printing, but also booksellers, distributors, and importers and exporters. Censorship in print works was also a relevant issue at the time. Jane Ohlmeyer, in a review for the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, remarked that Gillespie "concludes with a revealing examination of how contemporaries read works of literature and history, together with popular romances, almanacs, chapbooks and early newspapers."

Gillespie joined forces with his wife, Bernadette Cunningham, to produce Stories from Gaelic Ireland: Microhistories from the Sixteenth-Century Irish Annals. The book is considered to be a groundbreaking volume, one that contributes greatly to Gaelic Irish studies. It focuses primarily on the sixteenth century in the areas of Ulster, Ireland, and Connacht, Ireland. Gillespie combines text from primary literary sources of the period with careful analysis of their meaning and a brief description of the individuals and circumstances, all of which is then used in order to provide readers with a fair description of what life was like at the time in a particular part of Ireland. Katherine Simms, in a review for the English Historical Review, stated that "the detailed footnotes make this a treasure- trove of references to primary sources and recently published secondary works on Gaelic Ireland."

With Peter Clark, Gillespie served as the editor for Two Capitals: London and Dublin, 1500-1840. The work originated, in part, at a conference held in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland, and contains essays from fourteen historians and various illustrations and book plates categorized in seven themes: welfare and the police, urban landscape, religious practices, governance of urban and suburban areas, cultural institutions, demographics and employment patterns, and the nature of urban identity. Due to the way many of the essays are written, though, some of them fail to fit into a single, precise category, instead overlapping two or more. While many interesting anecdotes are included among the essays, questions still arise regarding the book's content, such as why it contains essays pertaining to England and Ireland alone, isolating Edinburgh, which, as the capital of Scotland, the third country of Great Britain, should in all likelihood be included as well. Donna T. Andrew, in a review for the Urban History Review, stated that "rather than carp on these opportunities not taken and rather than give a recipe for my ideal comparative British urban history, I should like to end by commending all the authors who contributed to this volume, and the editors for arranging it, and bringing them together." Vanessa Harding, a contributor to the English Historical Review, observed that "no single conclusion is likely to arise from a collection of essays, except that the value of juxtaposition and explicit comparison is justified. The volumes stand alone, but benefit significantly from being read together, though there could be even more linkages made between capitals and regions and between Ireland and England."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October 1, 1986, Michael Perceval-Maxwell, review of Colonial Ulster: The Settlement of East Ulster, 1600-1641, p. 932.

Catholic Historical Review, July 1, 1998, Fergus O'Donoghue, review of Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland, p. 556.

Church History, June 1, 1998, S.J. Connolly, review of Devoted People, p. 389; March 1, 2004, John W. Dahmus, review of Irish Preaching, 700-1700, p. 218; March 1, 2004, Patrick P. O'Neill, review of The Laity and the Church of Ireland, 1000-2000: All Sorts and Conditions, p. 220.

Contemporary Review, September 1, 1998, John McGurk, review of Devoted People, p. 159.

Economic History Review, November 1, 2002, Alan Dyer, review of Two Capitals: London and Dublin, 1500-1840, p. 761.

English Historical Review, July 1, 1988, Brendan Bradshaw, review of Colonial Ulster, p. 734; April 1, 1989, Victor Treadwell, review of Natives and Newcomers: Essays on the Making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534-1641, p. 484; February 1, 1999, T.C. Barnard, review of The First Chapter Act Book of Chirst [i.e. Christ] Church Cathedral, Dublin, 1574-1634, p. 181; June 1, 2003, Vanessa Harding, review of Two Capitals, p. 715; June 1, 2004, Katherine Simms, review of Stories from Gaelic Ireland: Microhistories from the Sixteenth-Century Irish Annals, p. 786; February 1, 2007, Bradshaw, review of Reading Ireland: Print, Reading, and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland, p. 182.

History: The Journal of the Historical Association, February 1, 1988, Nicholas Canny, review of Natives and Newcomers, p. 139.

Irish Literary Supplement, March 22, 2006, "The Impact of Print on Early Modern Ireland," review of Reading Ireland, p. 27.

Journal of British Studies, July 1, 2007, Matthew Jenkinson, review of The Irish Book in English, 1550-1800, p. 666.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, January 1, 1999, Alan Ford, review of Devoted People, p. 164; January 1, 1999, John McCafferty, review of The First Chapter Act Book of Chirst [i.e. Christ] Church Cathedral, Dublin, 1574-1634, p. 167; April 1, 2007, Jane Ohlmeyer, review of Reading Ireland, p. 346.

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, March 1, 2008, Jason Harris, review of The Irish Book in English, 1550-1800, p. 119.

Reference & Research Book News, November 1, 1997, review of Devoted People, p. 10; May 1, 2002, review of The Vestry Records of the Parish of St. John the Evangelist, Dublin, 1595-1658, p. 30; February 1, 2003, review of The Laity and the Church of Ireland, 1000-2000, p. 17; February 1, 2004, review of Stories from Gaelic Ireland, p. 34; May 1, 2004, review of Remaking of Modern Ireland, 1750-1950: Beckett Prize Essays in Irish History, p. 38; August 1, 2004, review of Cavan: Essays on the History of an Irish County, 2nd edition, p. 41; February 1, 2005, review of The Vestry Records of the Parishes of St. Catherine and St. James, Dublin, 1657-1692, p. 39; November 1, 2006, review of Print Culture and Intellectual Life in Ireland, 1660-1941: Essays in Honour of Michael Adams; February 1, 2007, review of The Medieval Manuscripts of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Renaissance Quarterly, December 22, 2004, John F. Wrynn, review of Stories from Gaelic Ireland, p. 1543.

Sixteenth Century Journal, September 22, 1997, Andrew McRae, review of The Proctor's Accounts of Peter Lewis, 1564-1565, p. 940; December 22, 1997, C.S. Knighton, review of The Proctor's Accounts of Peter Lewis, 1564-1565, p. 1366; September 22, 1998, Samantha A. Meigs, review of The First Chapter Act Book of Chirst [i.e. Christ] Church Cathedral, Dublin, 1574-1634, p. 862.

Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, April 1, 2007, Barbara A. Watkinson, review of The Parish in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland: Community, Territory, and Building, p. 433.

Times Literary Supplement (London, England), May 18, 2007, "White and Black," review of The Medieval Manuscripts of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, p. 26.

Urban History Review, September 22, 2003, Donna T. Andrew, review of Two Capitals, p. 65.

ONLINE

National University of Ireland, Maynooth Web site,http://history.nuim.ie/ (August 13, 2008), faculty profile.

Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Web site,http://www.rsai.ie/ (August 13, 2008), Michael O'Neill, review of The Parish in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland.