Bibliography
Christiaan Corlett
Corlett
Works authored
Contributions to journals
Corlett, Christiaan, “The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and the protection of monuments (part 1)”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 139 (2009): 80–100.
abstract:
This paper, to be published in three parts, explores the role of the Society in the protection of monuments since its foundation in 1849 until the passing of the National Monuments Act in 1930. Founded in Kilkenny in 1849, the Society quickly grew to become a national society within the subsequent two decades. At its foundations, the aims of the Society were `to preserve, examine and illustrate', and have remained the Society's aim to the present day. During the early years the Society engaged itself in the proactive conservation of monuments funded by the Society and its members, at a time when no other organisation or state body had responsibility, let alone an interest, in such matters. From the 1870s onwards, after which time the conservation of monuments was undertaken by the Office of Public Works, the Society actively lobbied government for increased protection of archaeological monuments in Ireland. This agitation influenced several strands of early legislation, and eventually culminated in the National Monuments Act of 1930, which extended over the twenty-six counties of what was then the Free State. A few years earlier in Northern Ireland, the Ancient Monuments Act (N.I.) of 1926 extended elements of earlier legislation regarding the protection of monuments in Britain that had not previously applied to Ireland. For over seventy years then, this Society was at the core of the evolving philosophy and state policy of monument preservation and protection in Ireland.
abstract:
This paper, to be published in three parts, explores the role of the Society in the protection of monuments since its foundation in 1849 until the passing of the National Monuments Act in 1930. Founded in Kilkenny in 1849, the Society quickly grew to become a national society within the subsequent two decades. At its foundations, the aims of the Society were `to preserve, examine and illustrate', and have remained the Society's aim to the present day. During the early years the Society engaged itself in the proactive conservation of monuments funded by the Society and its members, at a time when no other organisation or state body had responsibility, let alone an interest, in such matters. From the 1870s onwards, after which time the conservation of monuments was undertaken by the Office of Public Works, the Society actively lobbied government for increased protection of archaeological monuments in Ireland. This agitation influenced several strands of early legislation, and eventually culminated in the National Monuments Act of 1930, which extended over the twenty-six counties of what was then the Free State. A few years earlier in Northern Ireland, the Ancient Monuments Act (N.I.) of 1926 extended elements of earlier legislation regarding the protection of monuments in Britain that had not previously applied to Ireland. For over seventy years then, this Society was at the core of the evolving philosophy and state policy of monument preservation and protection in Ireland.
