David Brown

David Brown is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of History working on the Empire project. He has worked on delivering a series of high profile digital humanities projects, including the Down Survey of Ireland (2013) and the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (2022). He is the author of Empire and Enterprise (2020), a study of early modern merchants in the Atlantic world, along with numerous book chapters and journal articles. In 2018, he was awarded a fellowship to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and has been the recipient of two Charlemont Awards from the Royal Irish Academy—one for research into the early modern Caribbean and another for an analysis of early modern banking. AI has been central to his research methodologies since 2018, when he developed his first machine learning models for Transkribus, an AI platform for transcribing historical texts. Since then, he has presented research methodologies integrating AI into historical scholarship to diverse audiences, including the Irish Museums Association, the UK Cabinet Office, and OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT.

Publications

Books

David Brown, Empire and Enterprise: Money, Power and the Adventurers for Irish land during the British Civil Wars, 1, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2020, 1-300pp
Brian Gurrin with David Brown, Peter Crooks and Ciarán Wallace, People, Place and Power: The Grand Jury System in Ireland, 1, Dublin , Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, 2021

Book Chapters

The Atlantic Correpondence of the Royal African Company in Sophie H. Jones and Siobhan Talbot, Business News in the Early Modern Atlantic World, Leiden, Brill, 2024, pp. 256-276.
Finaning Counter Revolution: A Ledger from the irish Government Consol, 1797-9 in Analecta Hibernica, No. 53, Dublin, Irish Manuscripts Commission 2023, pp. 189-208.
The great gage: Mortgaging Ireland to Finance an Empire in, Gurminder K. Bhambra and Julia McClure , Imperial Inequalities, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2023, pp19 – 36.
Free, and unfree: Ireland and Barbados 1620-1660 in, editor(s)Finola O'Kane Crimmins and Ciarán O'Neill , Ireland, slavery and the Caribbean: Interdisciplinary perspectives, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2023.
Retrieved from the rubble: reconstructing Ireland's lost archive in, editor(s)Pamela Murray, Leah Humenuck, William Bennett and Lauren Moon-Schott , Mod Cons: Modern Conservation, Modern Conveniences, Modern Constraints [ICON Book & Paper Group Third Triennial Conference, 2021], London, Archetype Publications, 2022, pp. 46 - 53, [Zoë Reid, Jessica Baldwin, Peter Crooks, David Brown]
The Sea Adventure to Munster and Connacht, July and August 1642 in, editor(s) Patrick Little , Ireland in Crisis: War, politics and religion, 1641-50, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2020, pp43 - 60, [David Brown]
Mapping the past: geographical information systems and the exploitation of linked historical data in, editor(s)Sarah Covington, Vincent P Carey and Valerie McGowan-Doyle , Early Modern Ireland, New Sources, Methods and Perspectives, New York, Routledge, 2019, pp 301 - 320, [Micheál Ó Siochrú and David Brown]
The Down Survey and the Cromwellian Land Settlement in, editor(s)Jane Ohlmeyer , The Cambridge History of Ireland, vol.2, 1550-1730, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp584 - 607, [Micheál Ó Siochrú and David Brown]
Survival strategies in a time of war: the Blayneys of Monaghan 1640-1670 in, editor(s)Patrick J. Duffy , Monaghan History and Society: interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish County , Dublin, Geography Publications , 2017, pp251 - 264, [Micheál Ó Siochrú and David Brown]
Developing the Fagel map Collection in, editor(s)Timothy R. Jackson , Frozen in Time: The Fagel Collection in the Library of Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Lilliput, 2016, pp 115-128

Journal Articles

David Brown and Peter Crooks, Beyond 2022 and the Hore Manuscripts at Ferns Diocesan Archive, The Past: The Organ of the Ui Ceinnsealagh Historical Society, (35), 2022, p24 - 45
David Brown, This Blessed Plot, History Today, 70, (9), 2020, p74 - 83
David Brown, Taking the long way home: the perambulations of Harvard MS Eng 662, Rerum Hibernicarum, Scripti et Impressi, by Charles Vallancey, Archive Fever, 1, (13), 2020
David Brown, A Trustees' Survey of Meath c.1700, Ríocht na Midhe, 2020, p57 - 74
Micheál Ó Siochrú, David Brown and Brian Coleman, Calendar of transcribed material from the Council Office Books at Dublin Castle held in the Prendergast Papers, King's Inns Library, Dublin, Archivium Hibernicum, 72, 2019, pp. 50 - 283
David Brown, The Caledon Estate: Mortgage Default and Vulture Finance in Early Modern Ireland, Dúiche Néill, 25, 2018, p42 - 65
Micheál Ó Siochrú and David Brown, The Cromwellian Urban Surveys, 1653-1659, Archivium Hibernicum, 64, 2016, p37 - 150

Protocol or guideline

Georgia Angelaki, Karolina Badzmierowska, David Brown, Vera Chiquet, Joris Colla, Judith Finlay-McAlester, Klaudia Grabowska, Vanessa Hannesschläger, Natalie Harrower, Freja Howat-Maxted, Maria Ilvanidou, Wojciech Kordyzon, Magdalena Król, Antonio Gabriel Losada Gómez, Maciej Maryl, Sanita Reinsone, Natalia Suslova, Mark Sweetnam, Kamil Śliwowski, Marcin Werla , 'How to Facilitate Cooperation between Humanities Researchers and Cultural Heritage Institutions. Guidelines', Warsaw, Digital Humanities Centre at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 2019