Dr Terence Dooley

Dr Terence Dooley
Director of the CSHIHE & Senior Lecturer, Department of History, NUI Maynooth
Key Information
Email: 
terence.a.dooley@nuim.ie

Profile

Terence Dooley, MA, Ph.D. (NUI), H. Dip. Ed. was NUI Fellow in the Humanities 2001-03. He specialises in Irish social and political history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly the history of Irish country houses and the landed class; land and politics in independent Ireland; the working of the Irish Land Commission from 1881 to 1992; the revolutionary period 1916-23; and local history in Ireland.

Terence’s first major monograph, The decline of the big house in Ireland (2001), was described by Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin, and President of the Irish Georgian Society in Country Life as: ‘a brilliant and penetrating study of the reasons why the Republic of Ireland has so few surviving historic houses and collections.’ As well as being very well received in academic circles, the book became a national bestseller and has since been seen as pivotal in the shift of public and political attitudes towards the country house in Ireland.

Two years later, in 2003, Terence was commissioned by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Irish Georgian Society to write a report on the issues facing historic houses in Ireland and to make recommendations on how these issues could be addressed in the future. The report, A future for Irish historic houses? A study of fifty houses (2003), highlighted the increasing risks faced by Irish historic houses in both private and public ownership, in particular the challenge of financing their conservation and of finding sustainable uses for them into the future. It emphasised that the preservation of all remaining historic houses, as well as their contents and their surroundings, was a national imperative. The report subsequently informed government policy and led to the establishment of the Irish Heritage Trust in 2006.  

Meanwhile, in 2004, Terence was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates (CSHIHE) within the History Department at NUI Maynooth, a unique public-private venture involving funding from the Office of Public Works and a number of private benefactors.

Four years later, in collaboration with Mary Heffernan of the OPW, they successfully established the OPW-NUIM Archive and Research Centre at Castletown House. Its establishment cemented the relationship between the CSHIHE and the OPW illustrating how effectively a major academic institution – NUI Maynooth - and the nation’s prime heritage organisation – the OPW – can successfully collaborate in preserving, researching and communicating material directly relating to the built heritage. The intention of the Archive Centre is to show how archives underpin our understanding of the big houses in its broadest manifestation

More recently, in 2011, Terence initiated another important collaborative project with the National Library of Ireland which along with the CSHIHE funded a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship to achieve the key objective of ensuring that the extraordinary resources – estate rentals - which are the focus of this joint project are made accessible to researchers at all levels of scholarship and understanding.

Terence has also written a number of other monographs and edited or co-edited a number of volumes of essays, details of which can be found below. He sits on a number of public service bodies including the Committee on Geneaology and Heraldry (National Library of Ireland); Steering Committee, Failte Ireland Tourism Destination Development; the Board of Kildare Failte Ltd.; the Meath County Heritage Forum; and the Steering Committee of [the former] Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government project ‘Survey of Designed Landscapes’. He is a regular contributor to television and radio documentaries and shows.

On 2 April 2011, Mary Leland wrote an article entitled ‘Celebration of history, heritage and hospitality’ in the Irish Examiner in which she concluded: ‘Above all, these were the years of increasing heritage consciousness [early twentieth century], led not only by The Irish Georgian Society and smaller groups such as the Landscape Alliance from Waterfall in Cork, but given strength and status by the work of Dr Terence Dooley of Maynooth, whose Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates is crucial to the rehabilitation of so many Irish properties.’  

Public services, 2003-

  • 2010- . Member of Committee on Geneaology and Heraldry (National Library of Ireland)
  • 2010- . Member of steering committee, Failte Ireland Tourism Destination Development  Plan, Kildare and Wicklow.
  • 2010- . Member of communications and education sub-committee, Failte Ireland Tourism  Destination Development Plan, Kildare and Wicklow.
  • 2010- . Member of infrastructure sub-committee, Failte Ireland Tourism DestinationDevelopment Plan, Kildare and Wicklow.
  • 2009- . Member of NUIM/OPW Archive and Research Centre, Castletown House, Steering Committee.
  • 2007- . Chairman of the Advisory Panel to Advise the Irish Heritage Trust.
  • 2006- . Member of Meath County Heritage Forum (Cultural Heritage and Education Group).
  • 2005-06. Advisor to Steering Group for the establishment of the Irish Heritage Trust.
  • 2004- . Member of Steering Committee of Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government project ‘Survey of Designed Landscapes’.
  • 2002-03. Advisor to An Chomhairle Leabharlanna on project entitled: ‘Our cultural heritage: a strategy for action for public libraries’.

Media

  • The Home Place, Araby Productions, two one hour documentary series, RTE, 9-10 May 2011.
  • The murders at Wildgoose Lodge: agrarian crime and punishment in pre-Famine Ireland [The History Show ‘Book of the month’ with Myles Dungan, RTE, 2 January 2011.]
  • Lesser Spotted Ulster: the parishes of Killanny and Inniskeen, UTV, 4 Nov. 2009
  • ‘The built heritage in Ireland’, Dublin 103.2 FM, 1 Mar. 2009
  • OPW/NUIM Archive and Research Centre at Castletown, Nationwide, RTE 1,
  • The murders at Wildgoose Lodge, radio documentary, LMFM, 27 October 2008 (shortlisted for best local radio documentary, 2008).
  • The murders at Wildgoose Lodge, interview with Dr Patrick Geoghegan on ‘Talking History’, Newstalk 106, 13  July 2008
  • Pat Kenny Show, interview on The murders at Wildgoose Lodge, 15 October 2007.
  • Guns and neighbours: the murder of the Pearson family at Coolacrease in Hidden History series, RTE, 23 October, 2007.
  • Nationwide Special: country life and heritage weekend, RTE, September 2006
  • Eoin O’Duffy: an Irish Fascist, in Hidden History series, RTE, December 2006.
  • The Culture Show, BBC 2, October 2005
  • You thought you knew about the border, BBC 1, July 2005.
  • Land is gold: the story of the Lansdowne estate in Kerry, in Hidden History series, RTE 1, May 2005.
  • European Tour Weekly, Sky Sports, May 2005.
  • The Arts Programme, BBC 2, May 2005.
  • Off the Shelf with Andy O’Mahony (discussion on Terence Dooley, ‘The land for the people’: the land question in independent Ireland (Dublin, 2003), October 2005, RTE Radio One,
  • Pat Kenny Show, RTE Radio 1, September 2005
  • Pat Kenny Show, RTE Radio 1, May 2005
  • Morning AM [discussion on Terence Dooley, The decline of the big house in Ireland] TV3, June 2001.
  • Regular contributor to a variety of local radio stations.