1641 Depositions

都柏林都柏林学院Trinity收集的“1641年证词”包括大约3,100份个人陈述，其中主要是各阶层的新教徒男女讲述了他们在1641年天主教爱尔兰人叛乱爆发时的经历。这些材料是由政府任命的专员在十年的时间里收集的，大约有19 000页。它被系统地用于随后对叛乱领导人的审判，并为奥利弗克伦威尔保护国政权下有关天主教地主待遇的决定提供信息。在17世纪早期，苏格兰和英格兰的种植园主（他们越来越认同自己是“英国人”）殖民了该省，经常剥夺当地的天主教徒人口。这些证词生动地记录了这些殖民和“文明化”进程，其中包括新教在斯图亚特王国最偏远地区之一的传播，以及低地农业和商业实践的引入，以及当地人对这些发展的反应。这些证词也构成了一个有争议的指控的主要证据，即1641年的叛乱始于对新教定居者的大屠杀，因此，它们一直是爱尔兰历史上最持久和最痛苦的争议的核心，而这一争议从未得到令人满意的解决。事实上，1641年的“大屠杀”，就像威廉国王在博因河的胜利（1690年）和索姆河战役（1916年）一样，在创造和维持阿尔斯特的新教/英国集体身份方面发挥了关键作用。这套资料在近代早期的欧洲其他地方是无与伦比的，为1641年的叛乱以及17世纪爱尔兰、英格兰和苏格兰的社会、经济、文化、宗教和政治史提供了独特的信息来源。然而，它很难阅读，而且由于手稿的脆弱性，访问受到限制。该项目的目的是转录和数字化的“1641沉积物”，创造一个独特的研究工具的兴趣，学术界和公众。网站出版物将使用户能够充分查阅所有图像和文字记录，并可自由进行文字搜索，而数据库的建立（技术附录中所述）将有助于在各种学科开展更详细的研究项目，并为教学环境提供一个理想的工具。该项目将为研究生研究提供材料，提高主要申请人的研究和出版产出，并为四名研究人员提供宝贵的培训和工作经验。它还将为手稿收藏的转录和数字化提供一种工作方法，可应用于其他独特的历史收藏。还将有一些其他具体成果，包括在一份流行杂志上发表一篇介绍该项目的文章，在一份学术杂志上发表一篇经过评审的文章，举办一次关于1641的重要国际会议，会议论文将以编辑成册的形式出版，并在TCD图书馆举办一次展览（包括一份出版的目录）。通过利用现有的国际研究网络，该项目还将解决关键的史学辩论，以及在爱尔兰身份的跨境问题。初步讨论还显示了文学，语言学，性别研究，人类学和历史地理学的跨学科兴趣的广泛水平。AHRC的这一申请是一项联合倡议的一部分，涉及阿伯丁大学、剑桥大学和TCD，该倡议将在三者之间建立相互联系的机构联系。TCD已同意为该项目投入582，866欧元（见所附教务长John Hegarty博士的信），该项目将专注于关键战略目标，特别是爱尔兰-苏格兰研究，以及阿伯丁大学和TCD的手稿来源的数字化。

The collection of '1641 depositions' in Trinity College Dublin comprises some 3,100 personal statements, in which mainly protestant men and women of all classes told of their experiences at the outbreak of the rebellion by the catholic Irish in 1641. This material, collected by government-appointed commissioners over the course of a decade, runs to approximately 19,000 pages. It was systematically used in the subsequent trials of rebel leaders, and to inform decisions relating to the treatment of catholic landholders under Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate regime. During the early decades of the seventeenth-century Scottish and English planters (who increasingly identified themselves as 'British') colonised the province, often dispossessing the native catholic population. The depositions vividly document these colonial and 'civilizing' processes, which included the spread of Protestantism in one of the remotest regions of the Stuart kingdoms and the introduction of lowland agricultural and commercial practices, together with the native response to these developments. The depositions also constituted the chief evidence for the sharply contested allegation that the 1641 rebellion began with a general massacre of protestant settlers, and as a result they have been central to the most protracted and bitter of Irish historical controversies, which has never been satisfactorily resolved. In fact, the 1641 'massacres', like King William's victory at the Boyne (1690), and the battle of the Somme (1916), have played a key role in creating and sustaining a collective Protestant/British identity in Ulster. This body of material, unparalleled elsewhere in early modern Europe, provides a unique source of information on the 1641 rebellion and for the social, economic, cultural, religious, and political history of seventeenth-century Ireland, England and Scotland. However, it is difficult to read, and access is limited because of the fragility of the manuscripts. The aim of this project is to transcribe and digitise the '1641 Depositions', creating a unique research tool of interest to both the academic community and the general public. Web site publication would give users full access to all images and transcripts, with free text search, while the construction of a database (described in the technical appendix) will facilitate more detailed research projects in a variety of disciplines, and provide an ideal tool for use in the teaching environment. The project will provide material for postgraduate research, enhance the research and publication outputs of the principal applicants, and give valuable training and work experience to four research staff. It will also deliver a working methodology for the transcription and digitisation of manuscript collections, which can be applied to other unique historical collections. There will be a number of other specific outcomes, including an article for a popular journal describing the project, a refereed article for a scholarly journal, a major international conference on 1641, the papers of which will be published in an edited volume, and an exhibition (including a published catalogue) in the TCD Library. By exploiting existing international research networks the project will also address key historiographical debates, as well as cross-border issues of identity in Ireland. Preliminary discussions have also revealed a wide level of interdisciplinary interest from literature, linguistics, gender studies, anthropology and historical geography. This AHRC application is part of a joint initiative, involving the University of Aberdeen, Cambridge University and TCD, which will develop exisiting institutional links between all three. TCD has agreed to commit €582,866 to this project (see attached letter from the provost Dr John Hegarty), which will focus on key strategic aims, particularly for Irish-ScottishStudies, and the digitisation of manuscript sources at both the University of Aberdeen and TCD.