Offaly History lecture this Monday on Catholic owned land estate

OFFALY History will host a lecture next Monday on zoom on the fortunes of a Catholic owned estate in the 18th century.

The lecture, entitled “Morristown Lattin: the estate and its tenants in the 18th century” will be given by Dr Emma Lyons and it commences at 7.30pm on Monday, January 24.

To register contact Offaly History.

Emma Lyons holds a PhD from the School of History in University College Dublin, where she has lectured in early modern History. Emma held the Research Studentship in Irish History at the National Library of Ireland, cataloguing the Castle Leslie estate papers, and was researcher for the National Library of Ireland's World War Ireland exhibition. Her research focuses on the impact of the Penal Laws on Irish Catholic landowning families, specifically the education of Irish Catholic children on the Continent in the eighteenth-century, and Catholic landownership during the period.

Emma's book, Morristown Lattin, 1630-1800: the estate and its tenants, based on research for her PhD thesis, was published by Four Courts Press in September 2020, and her article 'To 'Elude the Design and Intention' of the Penal Laws: Collusion and Discovery in eighteenth-century Ireland - A Case Study' in Law and Religion in Ireland, 1700-1920 has just been published.

Through an examination of the estate records, this case study provides an insight into the adaption and survival of a Catholic-owned estate during two tumultuous periods in Irish history.

The analysis of leases, rent rolls, correspondence and legal documents, permits the tracing of patterns of land ownership and inheritance across the generations, in addition to the tenants and their links with the estate over generations.

This analysis of family and estate papers also sheds light on many other areas of social history that has largely been obscured. This includes the role of women in seventeenth and eighteenth society and estate management.