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Life
1840-1918; b. Clonmel; ed. Harrow and Oxford; bar; Commissioner on National Education; member of the Patriotic Union (Southern Unionists); D.Litt., TCD and Oxon.; author of Ireland Under the Tudors (1885-1890) and Ireland Under the Stuarts, 3 vols. (1909-10); wrote the historical entry on ‘Ireland’ for the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago 1911); d. Clonmel; a son, John, became General Manager of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland. DIW DIB
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Works
Ireland Under the Tudors: With a Succinct Account of the Earlier History, 3 vols. (London: Longmans 1885-90), and Do. [facs. rep. edn.] (London: Holland 1963); Ireland Under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, with maps, 3 vols. (London: Longmans & Co. 1910-1916), and Do. [facs. rep. edn.] (London: Holland 1963), xv, 370pp.; xii, 388pp., xi, 351pp.; also A Plea for National Education, in Answer to Mr. Butt’s Proposal for its Destruction (Dublin: Hodges, Foster & Co. 1875), 35pp. [in answer to “The Problem of Irish Education”].
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Criticism
See J. C. Beckett Making of Modern Ireland (London: Faber, 1966; 1981), p.464 [infra]; brief remarks in Maurice Headlam, Irish Reminiscences (London: Robert Hale 1947), p.45 [infra].
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Commentary
Alice Stopford Green, Irish Nationality (1912), characterises Bagwell as writing from ‘the viewpoint of the English settler [who regards] the natives as inferior, devoid of organisation or civilisation. (q.p.)
Maurice Headlam, Irish Reminiscences (London: Robert Hale 1947), contains an a short account of Richard Bagwell of Marlfield [Hse.], Clonmel according to which which he ‘had written several books on Irish history [and] had been in Parliament as a young man’. Also mentioned is the burning of Marlfield with its library and the fact that his son John Bagwell, who rebuilt it identically, and subsequently became Senator of Free State, was kidnapped by the Irish Republican Army [IRA] and made a ‘marvellous escape’ from the farmhouse where he had been confined, having ‘retained at a mature age his capacity for long-distance running’. The account includes further memories of the sport at Marlfield (Headlam, Irish Reminiscences, 1947, p.45, &c.)
J. C. Beckett, Making of Modern Ireland (London: Faber, 1966; rep. 1981), remarks that ‘Ireland Under the Stuarts (3 vols., London 1906-16) is mainly a narrative of political events with comparatively little attention to economic and social developments but is firmly based on the sources, and remains absolutely indispensable’ (p.464).
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References
British Library holds A Plea for National Education, in answer to Mr. Butt’s proposal for its destruction. [An answer to “The Problem of Irish Education”]; 36pp. Hodges, Foster & Co.: Dublin, 1875. 8o. [2] Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, etc.. 3 vol. Longmans & Co.: London, 1909-16. 8o. [3] Ireland under the Tudors, with a succinct account of the earlier history. 3 vol. Longmans & Co.: London, 1885-90. 8o.
Univ. of Ulster Library holds Ireland Under the Stuarts ([1909-16] rep. ed. London: Holland 1963); Ireland Under the Tudors, 3 vols. ([1885-90] rep. ed. London: Holland 1963).
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Quotations
Parnell’s supporters?: ‘Let all imagine that can, what sort of Protestants would support Mr. Parnell.’ (‘Home Rulers at Home’, University Magazine: A Literary and Philosophical Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 1878, p.216; cited in Roy Foster, Paddy and Mr. Punch, London: Allen Lane/Penguin 1993, p.73.)
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