Law versus Practice
Law versus Practice is a VRTI-affiliated research project led by Dr Frances Nolan at University College Dublin (UCD).
Supported by an SFI-IRC (Research Ireland) Pathway Fellowship, Law versus Practice is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary research project that explores the nature and commonality of women’s property-ownership between 1541 and 1800, a period of profound and often turbulent change in Ireland.
By applying digital tools to a wide body of source material, Law versus Practice seeks to challenge the existing historiography of early modern Ireland, which is heavily preoccupied with the demographic shift from Catholic (Gaelic Irish and Old English) to Protestant (New English) landownership. Focusing, in particular, on records that were produced during the seventeenth-century land settlement, the project looks beyond male-dominated freehold ownership to reveal the complex reality of an economy and society that relied on the monetisation of land to function. Central to this complexity was the evolution of common legal practice, as landowners relied on various legal contracts and devices to derive a profit from their estates, while also being responsible for the satisfaction of encumbrances claimed by family members. Surviving sources demonstrate that women commonly owned, inherited and conveyed property, and that they were both negatively and positively impacted by episodes of confiscation and plantation in early modern Ireland.
Law versus Practice investigates how women’s property ownership was understood, promoted or undermined within the context of the family; how it was understood, protected or undermined by the State, and how it was impacted by episodes of war and land transfer. It also explores the networks that underpinned women’s property ownership, and the extent to which such ownership in early modern Ireland can be traced and mapped.
In practical terms, the Law versus Practice team is creating biographical, geographic and primary source datasets to supply a database of female property owners and ownership. The number of women in the biographical dataset currently stands at over 1,400 – a sizeable return in the context of early modern Ireland. This has presented the Law versus Practice team with an exciting opportunity to collaborate with VRTI, as, by adhering to the VRTI person schema to create Unique Identifiers (UIDs), we can supply relevant person entities to the Knowledge Graph. This will help to increase the number of early modern women in the KG.
Law versus Practice seeks to understand
- how women’s property ownership was understood, promoted or undermined within the context of the family.
- how women’s property ownership was understood, protected or undermined by the State.
- the ways in which women’s property ownership was impacted by episodes of war, confiscation and plantation.
- how individual women navigated property ownership within
- the family,
- the legal system
- episodes of war, confiscation and plantation.
- the extent to which women’s ownership in the period between 1541 and 1800 be traced and mapped.
Team:
- Principal Investigator: Dr Frances Nolan
- PhD Student: Eoghan Fitzgerald
- Digital Humanities Consultant: Niall O’Leary
Research Ireland Award Number:
22/PATH-A/10840
Project webpage:
