Fellowships

Muriel McCarthy Research Fellowships for 2013, 2014, and 2015

 

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

Scholars are invited to apply for Visiting Research Fellowships of between one month and three months at any point between 1 June 2013 and 30 September 2015. Applications for fellowships of two or three months should be for consecutive months. Successful applicants will receive a stipend of €2,000 per fellowship month.

Scholars may nominate a period for their fellowship in 2013, 2014 or 2015. The long time-frame for the awards is designed to enable busy scholars to plan a visit to Dublin around forthcoming sabbaticals or research breaks.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 5.00 p.m. (Irish time) on Friday 18 January 2013.

Applicants for the Muriel McCarthy Research Fellowships must be established scholars with a doctoral degree in hand and at least one peer-reviewed research output to their name in the form of either a book or an article. We particularly welcome applications from post-doctoral scholars and early-career lecturers.

Students who have submitted their theses but have not yet been awarded their degree are not eligible to apply for these research fellowships.

 

THE LIBRARY

Marsh’s Library was founded in 1701 as the first public library in Ireland. It is located in the heart of Dublin beside St Patrick’s Cathedral. It houses important collections of early-modern (1450-1800) European, British, and Irish books and manuscripts, as well as items of significant interest to scholars of the medieval period.

The library has often been examined in the context of one or more of the four men (Edward Stillingfleet, Elias Bouhereau, Narcissus Marsh and John Stearne) whose collections constitute our founding bequests. Much work remains to be done on these scholars of European significance, but Marsh’s Library also invites research proposals which consider our rich holdings across a number of themes. These themes include, but are not restricted to:

• Travel literature and ethnography
• The history of readership and ownership
• Annotations, marginalia and ephemera
•  Concepts of science and scientific endeavour
•  The Enlightenment
•  Religious conflict, toleration and sectarianism
•  The growth of polemic
•  Censure and censorship

The holdings of Marsh’s Library were augmented in 2009 with the donation by the Guinness family of the library of Benjamin, 3rd Earl of Iveagh. This important collection has great strengths in Irish history, literature and bookbinding from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. The Benjamin Iveagh Library remains at the old Guinness residence in Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park, and is managed for us by the Office of Public Works (OPW).
The selection committee welcomes applications which consider the Benjamin Iveagh Library either on its own terms, or in conjunction with the main holdings of Marsh’s Library.

A trial integration of the catalogues of Marsh’s Library and the Benjamin Iveagh Library is available  here.

 

HOW TO APPLY

Applications are via the online submission system at: https://www.conftool.net/marshlibrary/

The closing date for receipt of applications is 5.00 p.m. (Irish time) on Friday 18 January 2013.

In order to submit an application, users must create an account on Conftool and enter their personal contact details. They will then be able to enter their research proposal, CV, and publications details. Applicants must also ask two referees to write a letter in support of their application. The referees must send this letter to Marsh’s Library as a PDF attachment to an email. This email should be addressed to keeper@marshlibrary.ie, and reach the library by the closing date for the competition:  5.00 p.m. (Irish time) on Friday 18 January 2013.

Applications for which two letters of reference have not been received by email by the above closing date will be considered invalid.

Questions arising from the Muriel McCarthy Research Fellowship Scheme may be addressed to Ms Maria O’Shea at keeper@marshlibrary.ie.

 

BACKGROUND TO THE SCHEME

The Visiting Research Fellowships are named in honour of Dr Muriel McCarthy, who retired as Keeper of Marsh’s Library in October 2011 after 44 years service in the Library. The first of the annual calls for applications was made in March 2012, and a total of 13 Muriel McCarthy Research Fellowships were awarded. The successful applicants, and their research projects, were:

Cox Jensen, Dr Freyja The Classical Book Trade in the Early Modern World (Readership and Ownership)

Gelleri, Dr Gabor A Study of Travel Book Collecting: The Case of Marsh’s Library

Gibney, Dr John Writing Irish history in early modern Ireland and Britain: the intellectual legacies of the 1641 rebellion

Guest, Dr Clare Assessing the early Italian Collections at Marsh’s Library: from Humanism to Journalism

Havens, Dr Earle Early Catholic Imprints; An Interleaved Annotated Bodleian Catalogue in Marsh’s Library

Humble, Professor Noreen Xenophon and the Collection of Élie Bouhéreau

Ingram, Dr Anders Printers and Contexts: Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations (1598-1600) and the Book Trade

Kilroy, Professor Gerard Edmund Campion in Ireland

Moore, Dr Jane Thomas Moore, Marsh’s Library and Irish Anacreontics

Morrissey, Professor Lee Milton and the Question of Reformation in Ireland

Rashid, Professor Salim Investigating the economic background of Swift’s Drapier Letters

Russo, Dr Raffaele The religious origins of utilitarianism

Sebo, Dr Erin Reading the Psalms: a study of early-modern Psalmic material in Marsh’s Library

 

FUTURE FELLOWSHIPS

There will be another call for applicants in November 2013. That call will be for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016.