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Life
1881-1943; b. Lancashire of Irish parents; worked in rubber factory at fifteen; publishe verses in local paper; interested readers helped him finish his education, taking him to Oxford; d. Dublin; Prof. of Modern History, TCD, 1914; he was married to Margaret Barrington, whom Liam O’Flaherty married in 1926, and later divorce; Lecky Professor, 1939; Roger of Sicily and the Normans in Lower Italy 1016-1154 (1912); A History of Medieval Ireland (1923); Richard II in Ireland 1394-5 (1927); A History of Ireland (1936), called the ‘standard work’ up to 1987 when so described in J. C. Beckett’s The Making of Modern Ireland (rev. edn.); contrib. historical entry on Ireland to Encyc. Britannica (1949 Edn.). DIW DIL OCIL
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Works
‘The spoken Languages of Ireland’, in Studies, Vol. 8 (1919). cp.249; Ed., Cuisle na hEigse [Spirit of Poetry] (1920) [anthology of mod. Irish poetry incl. Séamus Ó hAodha et al.]; History of Medieval Ireland 1110-1513 (Dublin: Maunsel 1923); ed., Calendar of Ormond Deeds, 6 vols. (Irish Manuscript Commission 1932-46); ed., ‘Unpublished Letters of T. Crofton Croker,’ Irish Book Lover, 28 (1941) [q.pp.]; ed., with R. B. McDowell, Irish Historical Documents, 1172-1922 (London: Methuen 1943), 331pp. [infra]; History of Medieval Ireland 1086-1513 (London: Methuen 1938; 2nd edn. 1978), 433pp.
Irish Historical Documents, 1172-1922, ed. Edmund Curtis & R. B. McDowell (Methuen 1943), 331pp. Documents incl. Bull Laudabilit[er] [17]; grants; Magna Carta Hib.; Laws of England to be Observed, 1246; remonstrance of Irish Princes to Pope John XXII, 1314; Irish admitted to English law, 1321; treaties of James, Earl of Ormond, and the O’Knnedys; Statutes of Kilkenny, 1366; Act of Absentees, 1368; An Irish parl., 1380; Declaration of Independence of Irish Parl, 1460; Poyning’s Law; Hugh O’Neill’s war aims, 1599; Act of Supremacy, uniformity, 1560; Plantation docs.; Confederation of Kilkenny; civil articles of Limerick, 1691; addresses of the house of commons on Molyneux’s book and the Irish woollen trade, 1698 [derogating his ‘dangerous position’]; catholic relief acts, 1778, 1782, 1793; insurrection act, 1796; Act of Union, 1800; Fox on the Irish Question, 1782; Ulster vols. resolution, 1782; United Irishmen’s plan; Catholic relief bill, 1829; Land League foundation, Mayo 1879; found. nat. Land League, 1879; land act of 1881; Wyndham’s act, 1903; various speeches on Home Rule; Unionist speeches in Ulster; Thomas Meagher, on physical force, 28 July, 1846; Douglas Hyde, on the Necessity, &c., 1892; Resolutions at 28 Nov. 1905 first annual meeting of Sinn Féin; Griffith’s speech; 1916 proclamation; Irish declaration of Independence, 1919; democratic programme, 1919; president’s statement to Dáil, 1919; 1921 Treaty articles; David Lloyd George, Eamon de Valera, and Arthur Griffith in the treaty, 1921-22.
See also Edmund Curtis, A. J. Otway-Ruthven and James Lydon, Government, War and Society in Medieval Ireland, ed. Peter Crooks (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2008), 407pp. [21 essays by holders of Lecky chair, TCD].
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Commentary
Patrick Henchy, The National Library of Ireland, 1941-1976: A Look Back: A Paper read to the National Library of Ireland Society (Friends of the NLI 1986) - re Ormond Deeds; Edmund Curtis had been calendaring the medieval documents; wrote to Dr Best informing him tha Lord Ossory (later Marquess of Ormonde) wd be leaving Kilkenny Castle for good and selling the effects; ‘this makes me wonder what will happen to the manuscript [...] If Lord Ossory conveys the whole mass of his documents from 1185 onwards to English it will certainly be an irreparable loss to Irish historical records [...] the great mass of our history in the late 17 th century. I have reason to believe that most of this has not been calendared or published. [...] I therefore wish to urge that if possible this great collection should be acquired for the nation. Yours sincerely, Edmund Curtis. (p.11.)
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Quotations
A History of Ireland (1936): ‘The Gaels were a military and oppressive aristocracy ... about 100 a.d. there was a great revolt of pre-Celtic subjects under Cairbre Cinn Cait, ‘the Cat-Head’. This was crushed by a Gaelic prince called Tuathal, and there followed ... the formation of a united kingdom of Meath and Connacht, which provided Ireland for centuries with a central High kingship. The Firbolgs never revolted again ... / Tuathal’s capital was Maeve’s fortress of Rath Croghan in Roscommon. East of the Shannon he built a second capital on the hill of Uisneach near Mullingar. A hundred years after him, about a.d. 200, his descendant Conn Cédcathach, formed a cnetral monarcy of which the eastern part was called Mídhe [Middle Kingdom]. He had a rival in the sould in Egohan Mór also called Mogh Nudat (devotee of the God Nuada) who created the kingdom of Munster, but the two at last came to twerms, and divided their spheres of influence north and south of a line from Dublin to Galway along a ridge of sandhills called Escir Riada. Henceforth Mogh’s Half and Conn’s Half were recognised divisions of our island.’ Curtis goes on to discuss in the same style the Dál Cuinn, lasting till 1022, which gave ‘Ireland a cnetre of national unity’. Also Cormac son of Art son of Conn [Mac Airt]; ‘In Gaelic tradition he is the first founder, legislator, and nation-maker, who made Tara’s ancient and sacred hill the capital of Ireland ... Feis ... Tailten ... five great roads ... formation of standing warrior force, the Fianna, which was finally too strong for the Ard Rí and was crushed at the battle of Gavra by Cairbre, Cormac’s grandson’. The ensuing section [p.5] deals with the High Kingship, 380-1022, when Brian Boru of the Dál Cais [Dalcassians] took control against the Vikings. Niall of the Nine Hostages rules at Tara, 380-405 a.d., ‘splendid hero of the Gaelic blood, tall, fair-haired, and blue-eyed, a great and noble minded warrio, “kind in hall and fierce in fray”. The sons of Niall conquer Ulster, establishing power at Aileach, and invade maritime lands of Scotland and Wales. &c (Univ. Paperbacks 1961, p.4ff.)
Scottish success: ‘It was not until after 1660 that the Scottish element in Ulster became a pronounced success and it is the only case of a real, democratic, industrial and labouring colony established in Ireland. Ulster finally became a province almost entirely. Protestant as regards the landowners and mainly so as regards the population, and it is reckoned that in 1641 of the three and a half million acres in the Six Counties the Protestants owned three million and the Catholics the rest. But even this proportion was to be reduced after 1660, and after 1690 scarcely anything of the Gaelic and Catholic aristocracy remained.’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p.232; cited in Sean O’Faolain, The Irish, 1947, pp.84-85, with the comment, ‘Only one positive and creative thing came out of the last wreck of Gaeldom: Ulster as we know it.’)
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References
Robert Hogan, Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), gives bio-details: b. Donegal, f. from Belfast; Oxon, 1900; History Prof., TCD, 1914; ‘His writing is ever in a terse, fluent style that has as its best a dramatic immediacy about it’; T. W. Moody wrote that ‘he had the merits of a pioneer’.
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Notes
Standard Curtis : A History of Ireland (1936) is called the ‘standard work’ up to 1987 when so described in J. C. Beckett’s The Making of Modern Ireland (rev. edn.); Curtis described as a Gaelic nationalist by sympathy who made use of Irish language sources by Cleeve (Dictionary of Irish Writers, 1988).
Real Dubs: Edmund Curtis wrote for the Dublin Historical Record, viz,. vol. IV, No. 3, March-May (1943), p.170 [sic], dealing with the injustice to the Norsemen by the Normans following treaties regarding their not being subject to the same political conditions as the Irish. [SEE George A Little, Dublin Before the Vikings, 1957, p.170]
Mockery of it: Roy Foster cites his ‘eloquent’ mockery of Pokorny’s theory of Eskimo settlements in Ireland: ‘’We must beat our harps into harpoons and our wolfdogs into walruses’ (Irish Statesman, 7 Nov. 1925; Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch, 1993, p.316 [Notes]).
Gift wrapped: A copy of Curtis’s History of Ireland bound in leather and with the national harp in gold on the front cover binding was given to Princess Grace by Eamon de Valera and is now held in the Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco).
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