Campion, Rebecca Margaret Ricardo (2012) Reconstructing an Ascendancy world: the material culture of Frederick Hervey, the Earl Bishop of Derry (1730-1803). PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.

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Abstract

This thesis seeks to examine how the Ascendancy fashioned their world in eighteenth-century Ireland, through a case study of Frederick Hervey, bishop of Derry and fourth earl of Bristol (1730-1803). It is primarily concerned with reconstructing and re-evaluating Hervey’s material world, in order to explore his complex relationship with it. He built, successively, two great houses in county Londonderry, Downhill and Ballyscullion, and one on his inherited lands in Suffolk, Ickworth House, placing them within a landscape setting and filling them with rare artworks. The changing intentions and career trajectory of this intriguing and multi-faceted figure are investigated by recovering the different functions of his three houses and by analysing his stylistic choices. Hervey’s campaign of consumption in Ireland will be placed within the wider British and European contexts, through reviewing the migration of objects, ideas and skilled practitioners to the houses and through assessing Hervey’s sense of national identity. Contemporary visitor responses are collated and analysed in order to consider the inter-related issues of how meaning is expressed and received though display. The purpose of the present chapter is to locate this study within existing literature, establish the merits of the methodology, survey the sources consulted and outline the content of subsequent chapters.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Keywords:	Reconstructing; Ascendancy; world; material culture; Frederick Hervey; Earl Bishop of Derry; 1730-1803;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > History
Item ID:	6705
Depositing User:	IR eTheses
Date Deposited:	05 Jan 2016 12:12
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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