May 2011 Conference and Launch of Major Research Resource at NUI Galway

A major electronic historical database will be launched at NUI Galway on Friday, 20 May. The database of the landed estates of Munster, c.1700-1900, contains information and a guide to research sources for 1,972 landed estates and some 3,230 estate houses in Munster.

A similar database for Connacht was compiled three years ago and both provinces can now be accessed at the site www.landedestates.ie Since its launch, the Connacht guide has been ’visited’ by tens of thousands of researchers and interested parties from dozens of countries across the globe.

This major research database was created by Senior Archivist, Brigid Clesham, with Marie Boran, Special Collections Librarian at NUI Galway as Adjunct Research Advisor. The Technical Advisor was Joe Desbonnet. The research project under which this database created was government-funded, as part of NUI Galway’s suite of research projects funded under PRTLI4.

The Munster Landed Estates database will be officially launched by Dr Martin Mansergh, at the Moore Institute in NUI Galway on Friday, 20 May at 5.30 pm, during a Conference on Irish Landed Estates c.1700-1900, which will take place in the Moore Institute on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 May.

Distinguished speakers at the Conference will include, Professor Joe Lee, Professor William Smyth, Dr Olwen Purdue, Caitriona Crowe, Finola Reid, Ciara Kerrigan and young researchers - Conor Montague, Joanne Mcentee and Laura Vickers- conducting research into aspects of the Irish landed estate and its influence. The conference programme may be consulted on the Moore Institute website.

Commenting on the significance of this new major research database, NUI Galway’s historian Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, academic Director of the Project, said: “This major research resource will be invaluable in assisting and supporting researchers -academics and members of the general public - working on aspects of the social, economic, political and cultural life of Ireland, notably rural society, from the early eighteenth century to the eve of the Great War”.