Dr Jason McElligott
The Keeper, Marsh's Library, Dublin
The Keeper is the head librarian at Marsh’s Library. The library holds a significant collection of early-modern Irish, British and European books and manuscripts. Recent finds among its holdings include the records of the Cromwellian courts martial in Dublin during the 1650s and a cache of 40 warrants from the time of Thomas Wentworth.
Dr McElligott read for his Ph.D. in modern history at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was the Research Associate on the Roger Morrice Entring Book Project (2001-2003) at Cambridge University, and an IRCHSS Post-Doctoral Fellow in UCD from 2003-2005. He was elected a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in October 2005, and worked at the Trinity Long Room Hub as Research Projects Officer and then Acting Executive Director between 2008 and 2011.
Dr McElligott has wide research interests in the field of early-modern print culture, including the history of the book; the history of reading; the growth of printed propaganda; and the theory and practice of censorship.
Publications
- Censorship and the Press, 1640-1660 (London, 2009).
- Royalism, Print and Censorship in Revolutionary England (Woodbridge, 2007).
- A Companion Volume to Roger Morrice's Entring Book, 1677-1691 (Woodbridge, 2007).
- Cromwell: our chief of enemies (Dundalk, 1994).
- Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum (co-edited with David L. Smith) (Manchester, 2010).
- Censorship and the Press, 1580-1720 (four volume sourcebook; general editor, with Geoff Kemp of Auckland, New Zealand) (London, 2009).
- Royalists and Royalism during the English Civil Wars (co-edited with David L. Smith) (Cambridge, 2007).
- Fear, Exclusion and Revolution: Roger Morrice and Britain in the 1680s (Aldershot, 2006).
Articles in Books and Journals
- 'Licensing, Censorship and the Book Trade', in Laura Knoppers (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Literature and the English Revolution (forthcoming Oxford, 2012).
- 'William Hone, Print Culture, and the Nature of Radicalism', in Ariel Hessayon and David Finnegan (ed.), Aspects of English Radicalism, 1500-1900 (Aldershot, 2011).
- '1641' in Joad Raymond (ed.), The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture , vol. 1: Beginnings to 1660 (Oxford, 2011).
- Atlantic Royalism? Polemic, Censorship and “A Declaration and Protestation of the Governor and Inhabitants of Virginia” (1649)’ in McElligott & Smith (eds), Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum (Manchester, 2010).
- 'The Constitution of Early-Modern Censorship', with Geoff Kemp, in Cyndia S. Clegg (ed.), Censorship and the Press, 1580-1639 (London, 2009), pp. xiii-xxxiii.
- 'Introduction: Censure, Censorship and Press Freedom during the English Revolution', in McElligott, Censorship and the Press, 1640-1660 (2009).
- ‘Stabilizing and Destabilizing Britain in the 1680s’, in Jason McElligott (ed.), Fear, Exclusion and Revolution: Roger Morrice and Britain in the 1680s (2006).
- ‘“Several hundred squabbling small tradesmen”? Censorship, the Stationers' Company, and the state in seventeenth-century England’, Media History, vol 11, no. 1/2, 2005, 87- 104. Reprinted under the same title in Joad Raymond (ed.), News networks in seventeenth-century Britain and Europe, (2005).
- ‘Roger Morrice and the reputation of the Eikon Basilike in the 1680s’, The Library, 7th ser., vol 6, 2(June 2005), 119-32.
- ‘John Crouch: a royalist journalist in Cromwellian England’, Media History, vol. 10, no 3, 2004, 139-55.
- Author of twenty two articles for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (September 2004). My areas of interest include royalist authors, printers, publishers, and clergymen of the civil wars and interregnum.
- ‘The politics of sexual libel: royalist propaganda in the 1640s’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 67 (March 2004), 75-99.
- ‘Cromwell, Drogheda and the abuse of Irish history’, Bullán: an Irish Studies Journal, vi, no. 1 (Summer/Fall2001), 109-32.
- ‘Edward Crouch: a poor printer in seventeenth century London’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, ns 1 (2000), 49-73.
Other Publications
- Marvels of Science: Books that changed the World, an exhibition catalogue of early scientific books at Marsh’s Library (2012) (co-authors Sue Hemmens, Muriel McCarthy and Ann Simmons).
- ‘In the line of fire’, in History Ireland, June/July 2012, vol 20, no 3, pp 42-3.
- ‘Cromwellian Courts Martial Records’, in History Ireland, Jan/Feb 2012, vol 20, no 1, pp. 20-1.
- ‘Roger Morrice, Sir Henry Hobart and a new eyewitness account of the Battle of the Boyne’, The Irish Sword, vol. XXIV, no. 95 (Summer 2004), 31-43.
ACADEMIC AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS
- Recipient of a 'Special Merit Award' (2009) for an 'outstanding contribution' to teaching and research at Oxford University.
- Elected to the Munby Fellowship in Bibliography at Cambridge University, 2008 (declined).
- Fellow of Merton College, Oxford (2005-08).
- Awarded an IRCHSS Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2003-05.
- United Kingdom Foreign Office Chevening Scholarship in 1997-98 and 1998-99.
- National University of Ireland Travelling Studentship for 1997-99.
- United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Board Scholarship for 1999-2000.
- Holder of the Robert Gardiner Memorial Scholarship (1997-2000) at Cambridge University.
- Scholarship from the Cambridge European Trust (1997-2000).
- Recipient of a scholarship (1994-96) from UCD to research an M.A. thesis on ‘The Newsbooks of Interregnum England, 1649-1660’.
- Winner of the T. Desmond Williams Memorial Medal for obtaining first place in the final year UCD history examination (1994).
- Winner of the Maureen Wall Memorial Medal for obtaining first place in the second year history examination (1993) in University College Dublin.
- Winner of the end of year Examination Debate in UCD History (1993).
- Recipient of the Patrick Semple Distinguished Student Award in UCD