Dr O'Shaughnessy's project is just one of eight awards granted nationally, and the only humanities-based project awarded in Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
His project will explore the history of eighteenth-century theatre culture, applying a financial and econometric analysis to the rich financial data of London’s major theatres.
“My project will bring cultural economists and theatre historians together to investigate manuscript archives of financial records held in the Folger Library, Washington D.C., and the British Library, London. Theatre historians currently have a limited sense of how culture was enabled or constrained by financial imperatives and this grant will enable us to add an important new perspective to the study of the period’s theatrical culture.”
This project “will reveal a hidden part of London’s social history and shed new light on the careers of actors, playwrights, and managers of the Covent Garden and Drury Lane.”
This project “will reveal a hidden part of London’s social history and shed new light on the careers of actors, playwrights, and managers of the Covent Garden and Drury Lane.”
“I am enormously grateful to my colleagues in TCD who helped to develop this application, particularly Maureen Burgess, Bevin McKeever, and Sarah Nangle who were simply fantastic.”
In the most recent round of funding, announced annually, researchers received awards valued at up to €2 million each. This prestigious and highly competitive grant recognises emerging research leaders who are ready to grow their own independent research teams or programmes on the global stage. The ERC awards funding on the basis of excellence only and applies that criterion to both the research project proposed and to the lead researcher applying.
The other awardees at TCD are Professors Marcus Collier (School of Natural Sciences), Thomas Chadefaux (School of Social Sciences and Philosophy), and Stephen Dooley (School of Physics).
This award is testimony to David’s passion not just for theatre history but for understanding the full cultural and financial contexts of eighteenth-century performance. His project is truly innovative and will showcase the benefits of best interdisciplinary practice for a new generation of literary scholars.
In 2019, Dr O’Shaughnessy launched a new website based on the work from his project ‘The Censorship of British Theatre 1737-1843,’ which features high-resolution scans of play manuscripts that allow people to see exactly what phrases, words and speeches were censored in the past.
Funded by a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, it brings together manuscript material from the Huntington Library in Los Angeles and the British Library in London in an extensive web resource.
Dr O’Shaughnessy has also worked extensively on Trinity alumnus Oliver Goldsmith, and in 2018, the first edition of the letters of Oliver Goldsmith, edited by Dr O’Shaughnessy and Professor Michael
Griffin, University of Limerick, was launched by the then Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, Mary Robinson in the Long Room of the Old Library. Dr O’Shaughnessy and Professor Griffin were also invited to Áras an Uachtaráin to present President Higgins with a copy. They are now currently preparing a new 8-volume edition of Goldsmith’s works to be published by Cambridge University Press.
Professor Eve Patten, director of the Trinity Long Room Hub congratulated Dr O’Shaughnessy on his award: “This award is testimony to David’s passion not just for theatre history but for understanding the full cultural and financial contexts of eighteenth-century performance. His project is truly innovative and will showcase the benefits of best interdisciplinary practice for a new generation of literary scholars.”