Society for the Study of Nineteenth-century Ireland
Conference
Maynooth University
18th-19th June 2026
CALL FOR PAPERS
Intimacies in nineteenth-century Ireland
The nineteenth century, including in Ireland, is often characterised by large-scale, abstract processes of accelerated change. The phenomenon of ‘modernisation’, encompassing various forms of economic rationalisation, administrative bureaucratisation, social standardisation, and cultural massification is seen to have left the Ireland of 1900 (or 1921) as almost unrecognisable from that of 1800 (or 1801). The voluminous records of a quasi-colonial ‘union’ state have provided rich pickings for historians and others seeking to situate and understand this transformation.
But how do scholars find the human core to this enormous story? How did these changes impact ordinary lives? And indeed, how did ordinary people in nineteenth-century Ireland contribute to, contend with, or confound the transformations going on around them? By way of answering these questions, this conference seeks papers that view Ireland’s nineteenth century through the lens of ‘intimacy’. That, as historian George Morris recently pointed out, can entail several interlinked approaches.
In the context of nineteenth-century Ireland, it might involve tracing how ordinary people negotiated (and renegotiated) private and communal relations as modernity began overwhelming tradition; the ways in which ordinary people’s worldviews and horizons altered in response to new local, national, and global realities; the ways in which official bodies, including church and state, provided spaces for intimate encounters; the private and/or secret conversations and revelations that played out in letters, diaries and other ego documents; as well as how we study these phenomena as scholars who often have personal and emotional investments in the sources and archives we mine.
In essence, this conference will ask if seen from this angle – not quite ‘from below’ but ‘from within’– does Ireland’s tumultuous nineteenth century look different?
Suggestions for possible themes include, but are not limited to:
- Love, sex and romantic relationships
- Bodies, senses, and emotions
- Friendship, companionship, and community
- Familial and caring relationships
- Life cycle events: births, marriages, deaths, etc
- Intimate knowledge: gossip, rumour and secrets
- Interpersonal violence
- Medical intimacies
- Intimacy and emigration; migrant correspondence
- Intimacy and religion: faith and belief, prayer, confession, etc
- Intimacy and space: privacy, shared space, competing ownership of land, intimacy and the built environment, etc
- Intimate sources: letters, diaries, memoirs, etc
- Scholarly praxis and intimacy
Abstracts of 250 words for 20-minute papers can be sent to ssnciconference2026@gmail.com by 1 February 2026. Please also include a 50-word biographical note. We also welcome proposals for panels of no more than 3 papers.
Three Bursaries of €300 will be provided on a competitive basis to postgraduate, and three similar bursaries for early-career researchers, or independent scholars for whom another source of funding is not available for travel expenses. Please mention if you wish to apply for a bursary when submitting your abstract.
In keeping with the Society’s commitment to interdisciplinarity, the conference aims to bring together a diverse range of scholarly voices including new and established researchers and those working outside of traditional academic settings.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Dr. Leanne Calvert (University of Limerick)
Prof. Fionnuala Dillane (University College Dublin)
Prof. Marc Mulholland (University of Oxford)