Dr Billy Shortall
Ryan, Gallagher, Kennedy Research Fellow on the Cuala Press Project, Schooner Foundation.
This project facilitates research on the operation of the Cuala Press from 1908 to 1946 and its earlier incarnation, the Dun Emer Press since 1903. The Library of Trinity College holds much of the business archive of the Press and a significant collection of artist-designed, hand-printed and hand-coloured Cuala Press prints, dating from the early 1900s. These prints have been conserved, catalogued and photographed. Working with Dr. Angela Griffith, Director of the Irish Art Research Centre, TCD, I will develop new scholarship on Cuala Press prints to accompany the artist works on the Virtual Trinity Library platform. In addition an academic conference and publication will be delivered.
Most recently I was a visiting fellow at Notre Dame University. I previously worked on the Seeing Ireland project, a joint development of a virtual recreation of the Irish Race Congress in Paris in 1922 between the Trinity Long Room Hub and TRIARC. The Congress website and associated art exhibition are accessible at www.seeingireland.ie
Recent Articles
- Billy Shortall, “Exposition d'Art Irlandais 1922” in Marty Fahey, ed., Who Do We Say Se Are? Irish Art 1922 | 2022. Snite Museum of Art, The University of Notre Dame, February 2022.
- Billy Shortall, Ciaran O'Neill, “Seeing Ireland: Staging a cultural coup in Paris 100 years ago” in Irish Times, 26th Jan. 2022. Feature article.
- Billy Shortall, “Paint and Politics – an unhealthy intersection.” in History Ireland, Jan/Feb 2022.
- Billy Shortall, Catalogue entries for The Art of Negotiation: John Lavery's Anglo-Irish Treaty Portraits, an exhibition of fourteen John Lavery paintings at the Irish Embassy, London, opened October, 2021.
- Billy Shortall, “How a Paris conference in 1922 put Ireland on a world stage” (Dublin: RTE, August, 2021) available at https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/0831/1243941-world-congress-of-the-irish-race-paris-1922-aonach-na-ngaedeal/
- Billy Shortall, “What Ireland’s first stamps told the world about the new state” (Dublin: RTE, May, 2021) available at https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/0520/1222847-irish-free-state-stamps-design-james-ingram-lily-williams-millicent-grace-girling-john-j-oreilly/
- Billy Shortall, “Cuala embroideries ‘meant for a pious market’” in Irish Arts Review. Spring, 2021.
Contact Details
Dr Billy Shortall
Department of the History of Art and Architecture
Irish Arts Research Centre
Provost's Stables
Trinity College
Dublin 2.
Email: shortalw@tcd.ie