Mark Empey

On Thursday 12 Feb. we will be sponsoring a conference on THE ULSTER PLANTATION, linked to the 'People of Plantation Ulster' database project (QUB/Maynooth). This is a free event open to all, held at PRONI (11-4). Registration and programme is at: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/conference...

Glorious backdrop with a fitting slide for the picture!

And Porto by day 🌞

Female Book Ownership (c. 1500–1700) The study of female book ownership is undergoing rapid change. Manuscript booklists are being unearthed thanks to the detective work of scholars mining archives, while an increasing interest in owners...

It’s in the Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing and appears to have been published going by this link (link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/...) but I’ve neither received any info or pdf copy! Could send you the proofed copy of you’d like Bob?

Porto at night…

The standing remains of the largely #16thc castle of Dunluce #Antrim. Home to the MacDonnells from the 1550s it boasts some of the most spectacular scenes in Ireland. Despite the Baltic temperatures 🥶 this was one day well spent #earlymodern

Letter from Edward, Lord Conway, to Sir Thomas Wentworth (lord deputy of Ireland) reporting how notable figures in England are all 'ill satisfied'

It appears everybody is 'ill satisfied' in January 1637, at least in the eyes of the second viscount Conway anyway. Something tells me he's not entirely the life of the party #earlymodern

Great look into the comprehensiveness of EEBO and EEBO-TCP and what that means for using those tools. Highly recommend for all computational bibliographers and early modernists doing large-scale work with EEBO

Conference poster featuring excerpts from a painting: a man in a tunic (Apollo) chasing a woman (Daphne); Apollo looks imploring, while Daphne, walking away from him, looks exasperated. Their figures repeat in miniature on the background of the poster, and in the center in a purple circle is the following text: "January 5-7, 2026, Victorial College Chapel and Online, Early Modern Asexualities"

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: Conference on "Early Modern Asexualities," in person at Victoria College at the University of Toronto (and streamed online), January 5-7, 2026.

Get previews of chapters in the collection edited by myself, @catherineclifford.bsky.social, and @omaraphd.bsky.social. 💜🤍🌪️🖤

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Proofs of new chapter coming out on Female Book Ownership 1500-1700

In good news (well, for a small minority) I’ve been given permission to return to Bluesky.

In better news for #earlymodern folk, it’s a timely return as I’ve got proofs for my latest #bookhistory work on female book ownership 1500-1700 #HerBook

They’ll all be copying Kneecap next by wearing Union Jack balaclavas

Are you curious about the potential for archival practices to shape the study of emotion; why there are letters in the English State Papers labelled 'mad'; or how the culture & politics of Elizabethan England shaped people's experience of distress? Find out here! doi.org/10.1017/S008... #earlymodern

You could add “obviously” and maybe “inevitably” to a list of hated academic phrases, which I fear could grow quite quickly if I put further thought on this debate

Can’t help but be engrossed by this. Not just the quality or attention to detail but how the desk is presented, the meticulous research, the anguish of research (??), and the hints de Heem left for the viewer to interpret and reflect on. Fabulous

You may not be interested in Maelsechlainn Mór.

You may even not be interested in the magnificence that is the Annals of the Four Masters, compiled by ridiculously talented Irish Franciscans under challenging conditions.

But please don’t tell me you aren’t impressed by work of this scribe 😍

Secrets of a 1569 letter: how books defied borders? The power of partnerships in the 16th century Rosenn Nicolas, University of Galway1 Figure 1: Introduction of the letter The Plantin Moretus Museum keeps an original letter exposing unusual facts about the people involved in the printing spher…

✉️ We're back from our summer break with a new blogpost by Rosenn Nicolas (Galway),exploring a letter to Christopher Plantin that shows how 16th-century European book production depended on networks of publishers,printers, & intermediaries,shaped by commerce and censorship.
#REBPAF #MSCA #BookHistory

Canoes in the Early English Caribbean: The Role of an Indigenous Technology in Making Mercantilism Work* Abstract. The Caribbean, with its focus on cash crop production, played a major role in the rise of England’s Atlantic trading system and the making of mod

Fascinating article by Nuala Zahedieh about the centrality of canoes in early colonial exploitation 🗃️https://academic.oup.com/past/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pastj/gtaf021/8231030

Just discovering this database of books as symbols in Renaissance art--a wonderful resource #EarlyModern #HerBook basiraproject.org

Positive news! Something we all need to hear. Many congratulations

So much to unpack from Joe’s wonderful #HerBook post on Lady Bindloss’s purchase records. As he astutely notes, such records “help situate book ownership within a broader story of the networks and market mechanisms through which books moved from printer to seller to buyer”.

WELL worth the read 👇👇

Sir Edward Osborne reported that the assassin, Felton, demanded his pay ‘so peremptorily (with his hatt on) of the Duke, as he kickt him, whereuppon he stabd him in the back, leaving him butt soe much time as to say “villaine thou hast slaine me” and soe died’. The DRAMA

Conference: Women and the Household in the Early Modern Book Trade | Museum Plantin-Moretus The aim of this two-day conference is to share knowledge of women’s rich and varied lives and works in the period before the rapid industrialisation of book production which changed the face of home l...

REGISTRATION OPEN!

Now more than ever, research is reshaping our view of women’s roles in the early modern book trade. Join us in Antwerp (5–7 Nov 2025) for our conference Women & the Household in the #earlymodern Book Trade.

Register here: tinyurl.com/womenbooktrade

#rarebooks #bookhistory 💙📚📜

One for you @alanford56.bsky.social

Sir James Ware's notes from The Register of St Werburgh's in Chester in which he creates a list archdeacons who served in Irish dioceses in the medieval period

Sir James Ware's notes from The Register of St Werburgh's in Chester in which he creates a list archdeacons who served in Irish dioceses in the medieval period

Always fascinated by #17thc historians and how they structured and took notes of their research.

Here's an example of the Irish historian, Sir James Ware, trawling through the Register of St Werburgh's in #Chester and listing archdeacons who served in Irish dioceses in the #medieval period

Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain, 1707-1819 Reframes the study of Welsh cultural revivalism, highlighting transnational and imperial contexts.

Publication day!!

Find out how C18th Welsh cultural revivalism positioned itself within an expanding British Empire and a newly-minted British state. Includes Welsh sources on slavery/abolition, settler colonialism, Indigenous America, and more

🚨🚨🚨 35% off all formats with the code BB135 🚨🚨🚨

But will you ever get a full night of sleep? Once the munchkins settle down you'll be having nightmares for the next ten years worrying about them going to Copper Face Jacks, and then another five years petrified at what they might be doing there. Following that it's grandchildren staying over

This volume is a much needed contribution to the wider #bookhistory community, specifically as it places an emphasis on indigenous language and its responses to the rapidly changing colonial and printed world. It also complements the #earlymodern volume 3 brilliantly

Very exciting: the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published a cluster of new entries on women stationers. See the intro by Valerie Wayne: www.oxforddnb.com/newsitem/906...

ODNB entries are so helpful in identifying women from traces on printed material. So happy to see this work ❤️

📣John Locke’s Forgotten Manuscript

We are thrilled to announce that @davidrarmitage.bsky.social's
article on his discovery of a new John Locke manuscript is out now👇

It sheds new light on Locke's practical involvement in political economy & his engagement with Ireland 📜🗃️