The Office of Public Works (OPW) has announced the launch of a new annual research journal, Irish Heritage Studies, and invites submissions for the first volume.
Established in 1831 (and with antecedents dating back to 1670), the OPW has three principal areas of responsibility: managing much of the Irish State’s property portfolio; managing Ireland’s flood risk; and maintaining and presenting 780 heritage sites, including national monuments, historical properties and their collections. Irish Heritage Studies aims to explore the OPW’s rich history, which ranges from civil engineering, famine relief and loan administration to major building projects, and architectural and archaeological conservation.
Published in association with Gandon Editions, the journal will showcase original critical research rooted in the substantial portfolio of material culture in the care of, and managed by, the OPW: built heritage; historical, artistic, literary and scientific collections; the national and international histories linked to these places and objects; and its own long organisational history. Journal articles will contribute to a deeper understanding of this remarkable collection of national heritage, and investigate new perspectives on aspects of its history.
Irish Heritage Studies is expected to form a valuable record of new historical research findings which will be of national and international interest. It derives from an ongoing curiosity to learn more about the people and histories represented by the historical properties, landscapes, archives and collections in the care of the OPW.
These properties range from prehistoric megalithic cemeteries, ancient ringforts and early medieval monastic sites to Norman castles and fortified houses and on to an impressive inheritance of Georgian and later buildings, right up to the monuments that preserve our revolutionary history of the twentieth century. In essence, this is the story of Ireland’s architectural history as well as that of the people of Ireland: its folklore, culture, traditions, and lost or overlooked histories.
The survival of collections and archives relating to these places – including OPW’s official papers in the care of the National Archives – offers a great deal of potential for future research. The journal will complement OPW’s ongoing programme of exhibitions, publications, academic partnerships, conferences and visitor engagement, and is designed to appeal to an interested public, specialist and professional readership.
Maurice Buckley, Chairman of the Office of Public Works, said: “At the OPW, we are proud and humbled to be custodians of so many important elements of Ireland’s historical material culture. As part of that responsibility, we work hard to foster research into these properties, gardens and incredibly diverse collections, and share those findings with our Irish – and indeed global – audiences. Irish Heritage Studies will be a tremendous forum for new and exciting research, and we look forward to discovering more about these wonderful places and objects, and their associated histories. As part of this, we hope to uncover more of the OPW’s own long and varied history as we approach its bicentenary year in 2031. I particularly want to welcome and thank our Advisory Board members for embracing this new venture at the outset by lending their support and expertise.”
Professor Terence Dooley of Maynooth University, and a member of the journal’s Advisory Board, said: “This is an extremely exciting and timely initiative from the OPW which will give established and emerging scholars a wonderful publication platform to disseminate new findings and knowledge relating to the OPW’s properties and collections, and also provide much necessary wider historical contexts to understand a whole range of histories, be they in the field of architecture, material culture, landscape design, social history, prosopographical history and on to research infinity.”
