Life
1886-1962 [Constantia Elizabeth]; b. Dublin, ed. St Leonard’s Sch., St. Andrew’s, Bedford Coll., London and then TCD; taught at TCD, becoming Prof. of Economic History, 1939; first woman appointed a chair in TCD; Lecky Professor (Modern History), 1945; sel. and ed. Arthur Young’s Tour of Ireland (1925); The English Traveller in France (1932); Dublin Under the Georges (1936); Irish Town and Country under the Georges (1940); History of Trinity College (1946); The Stranger in Ireland, From the Reign of Elizabeth to the Great Famine (1954); member of Irish Academy of Letters; retired 1951; d. 6 Feb. 1962, in Pembury, Kent. DIW DIB DIH DIL2
Works
A Short History of Ireland (Dublin & Belfast: Educational Company of Ireland; London: T. Fisher Unwin 1914); ed. [ & sel.] Arthur Young’s Tour of Ireland (q.d.); Irish History from Contemporary Sources 1509-1610 (London: Allen & Unwin 1932); The English Traveller in France (1932); Dublin Under the Georges 1714-1830 (London: George Harrap 1936; 1937; rev. edn. London: Faber 1956), Do. [2nd edn.] (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1961; rep. Lambay Books 1997), 350pp., with index; Country and Town under the Georges (London: G. G. Harrap 1940; rev. edn. London: Faber 1956); Irish Town and Country under the Georges (1940); A History of Trinity College (Dublin: University Press 1946); The Stranger in Ireland, From the Reign of Elizabeth to the Great Famine (London: Cape 1954).
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Quotations
Giraldus Cambrensis: ‘[his works] have all the faults of the medieval chronicle. His description of the early Irish as a race of savages is not strictly true, as may be seen from archaeological remains, old Irish literature and musical attainments, illuminated books, and the gold and silver ornaments and ornamental metal work now displayed in the national Museum, Dublin’ (Stranger in Ireland, 1954, p.315 [chap. on Spenser]).
Maxwell adds in an ensuing note: ‘the difference in outlook between the Irish chieftains of the [Norman] period and the emissaries that reached Ireland from Spain and Rome are well brought out in Archbishop Mathew’s book, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe (1933).’ The reference is to David Mathew (1876-1916), a Welsh churchman whose scholarship is commemorated in Thomas Matthews’ Welsh Record in Paris, ed. Dylan Rees & John Gwynfor Jones (Cardiff 2010), 192pp.
Irish tradition: ‘The old people who had known and related the ancient tales and legends died off in their thousands, and the young people they had brought up in the old traditions swarmed to America. The continuity of national custom and rural life as it had existed in the eighteenth century for the most part was broken.’ (Country and Town in Ireland under the Georges, London: Harrap 1940; quoted in Seán de Fréine, The Great Silence: the study of a relationship between language and nationality Cork: Mercier 1978, p.82).
Norman Invasion: ‘It should be remembered that this Norman occupation was an illegal one in the eyes of the Irish. Henry II had no right to the country save that of conquest, and even though the chiefs had temporarily submitted to him out of fear, had surrendered their lands and received them back again as feudal vassals “for them and their heirs forever,” these lands were not really theirs to give, but belonged to their tribe as a whole. Thus, no real or binding submission had been made, the assent of the native Irish population having been ignored. The Normans regarded the situation as conquerors and from the feudal standpoint; the Irish believed in their old tribal customs and bitterly resented what they deemed to be the Norman intrusion.&146; (Maxwell: A Short History of Ireland, T. Fisher Unwin, London [1914], p.17; quoted in Norreys Jephson O’Connor, Changing Ireland: Changing Ireland: Literary Backgrounds of the Irish Free State, 1889-1922, Harvard UP 1924, p.10.)
References
University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection) holds Irish History from contemporary sources 1509-1610 (1923).
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