Thursday, 16 December 2021

On Tuesday 14 December 2021, Dr Karol Mullaney-Dignam, Department of History and Course Director, MA Public History and Cultural Heritage, was invited to speak to the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN) as part of their Winter Evening Lecture Series. iCAN is a partnership between the National Museum of Ireland, Local Authorities and community groups in counties Clare, Galway, Mayo and Wicklow. 

iCAN supports community groups as they collect, preserve and share their local history and heritage online. These groups can avail of professional and peer-to-peer training and guidance and meet regularly throughout the year to discuss key issues and to share information ideas and resources.

Dr Mullaney-Dignam’s festive lecture, titled ‘Christmas at the country house: class, community, culture’, looked at ‘big houses’ in nineteenth-century Ireland, using Christmas as a lens. Based on new research on selected houses, it showed how Christmases past were largely religious and private celebrations until their secularisation and commercialisation from the mid to late 1800s. Modern Christmas ‘traditions’ developed from a mix of international influences and ideas promoted by the print media of the day. 

Historical sources for the study of landed estates, country houses and their social and cultural histories, were also highlighted to encourage iCAN members to conduct research on these heritage assets in their own localities.