AN ONLINE collection of illustrated travel accounts being compiled at NUI Galway will show how international visitors portrayed Ireland from the 16th to the 19th century.
Researchers working on the Ireland Illustrated project have asked anyone with books containing travel images of Ireland in the years from 1500-1900 to contact them so copies can be considered for inclusion in the database.
Prof Jane Conroy, a joint leader of the research team, said travel accounts and accompanying images played an important role in “shaping mental images” about Ireland abroad.
“In a way, travel accounts were the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide of their day, often containing drawings or sketches of the scenery and people,” she said.
“Quite scarce in the 1600s, accounts from that century portrayed a wild land, with quite an uncivilised population.”
However, Prof Conroy said a different image of Ireland emerged from the late 1700s onwards, as manor houses, estates and towns started to attract more attention.
Large numbers of images of people, landscape, buildings and interiors, along with texts, are currently being scanned and catalogued. Some of the material has never been published, while some is housed in libraries and museums around the country.
The resulting searchable database, due for completion in 2012, will be available to members of the public as well as academics.
It is hoped that an interactive searchable map will allow for an examination of images from particular towns or counties. The researchers eventually hope to juxtapose images of scenery with a current photograph of the area depicted.
Prof Conroy said that while some visitors to Ireland travelled with artists or were gifted amateurs themselves, it was rare for the eyewitness to produce the final drawing.
Often the visitor returned home and described a particular scene to an artist.
“Travel accounts played a major role in shaping mental images in early modern and modern Europe. Particularly when images came to support the text, the suggested representation might become even truer than reality,” she said.
“These ancient texts and the images they contain preserved an important part of history that needs to be discovered.
“Bringing this part of our heritage together through the Ireland Illustrated project, we will have a resource of interest and value to all.”
Images can be submitted to jane.conroy@nuigalway.ie
According to Prof Conroy, a similar database has been created in France, Italy, Switzerland and Canada. International experts gathered at NUI Galway recently to discuss the evolution of the projects in the various countries.
Ireland Illustrated is a strand of a larger project, Texts, Transmission and Cultural Exchange, which is taking place at NUI Galway Moore Institute for Humanities.
It is part of an interdisciplinary PhD research programme involving NUI Galway, TCD and UCC, and is funded by the Government and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
