Louthiana: Place in archaeological literature

Louthiana is a large format book printed in what is known as quarto size, that is, on pages measuring 292mm by 220mm (11 1/2 by 8 5/8 inches). In terms of its layout, the main body of the book is preceded by an introduction and preface. The main body is itself divided into three 'books' or chapters, each dealing with a separate theme, as follows:

Bk. I '... the Most Remarkable Bodes, Forts and Mounts ...'
(medieval earthworks: mainly motte-castles of 12-13th century date plus a few ringforts of 5-11th century date)

Bk. II '... the Principal Castles, Keeps, and Towers ...'
(medieval castles: 12th to 17th century AD date)

Bk. III '... the Most Remarkable Remains of the Works of the Danes and Druids ...'
(prehistoric monuments: ranging from megalithc tombs of Neolithic date, c.4,000-2,500 BC, to monastic remains of 12th century AD date)

Though these themes now sound archaic and naive to our ears, they represent a bold attempt by the author, Thomas Wright, to classify and understand the range of earth and stone monuments which he encountered in the farmlands of Louth in 1746. His descriptions of the individual monuments and his general assessment of their function and dating are completely obsolete. However, they do serve one very useful purpose for us: they illustrate the near complete absence of knowledge as to the archaeology of Ireland and Britain at the time.

As such, the book represents one of the earliest examples of archaeological publishing in Ireland or Britain. In Britain, it is preceded only by Thomas Stukeley's Stonehenge (1740) and Abury (1743), in which he presents the first accurate description and surveys of these great 'stone circles'. In Ireland, its only precursor is Thomas Molyneux's grounding-breaking essay on Irish field monuments - A Discourse Concerning the Danish Mounts, Forts, and Towers in Ireland - which appeared in 1726. What these works all share is an empirical approach to the survey, description and classification of ancient monuments and artifacts. As a result, they represent the first true examples of an archaeological approach to the study of the past. In so doing, they laid the foundations for the emergence of archaeology as an academic discipline in the 19th century.[*1]

The above-mentioned works also share another characteristic: an archaic and frequently convoluted style of prose. This was the inevitable result of the general ignorance in the 18th century of the dynamics of past societies let alone the time-lines of prehistory. The only written sources from which they could glean parallels for what they were recording were the occasional references to monuments in the Bible and the writings of Greek and Roman scholars. In the case of Louthiana, the result is rambling text full of overblown theories that attribute all monuments to the Danes. However, this is more than offset by the sheer number of illustrations - 74 in all - in proportion to the 48 pages of text. Thus, the book is dominated by visual images, a most unusual feature for a text published over 250 years ago!

When coupled with its generous size and wide margins, the illustrations in Louthiana have a spaciousness that makes them most attractive to the modern eye. In fact, many of them have an aesthetic quality that imbues them with an artistic rather than an antiquarian or archaeological quality. It is this ambience that makes Louthiana the most attractive and enduring of books, and explains why it was reprinted in 1758, reissued in a special edition by Dundalgan Press in AD 2000, and is now the subject of this web project.

Date of Publication

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Louthiana is not so much its topic or its author but the date of its publication - AD 1748. It was first published in London in 1748, was reprinted in Dublin in 1758 and was reissued in Dundalk in AD 2000. In the year of its first publication, it generated the following illuminating comment from Lord Orrery,[*2] one of the leading savants and bibliophiles of the time:

Comments on Louthiana by Lord Orrery

21st September, 1748

'A thin quarto named Louthiana, is most delicately printed and the cuts admirably engraved, and yet we think the County of Louth the most devoid of antiquities of any County in Ireland. The County of Corke is, I believe, in the press, and I am told it will be well executed. I have seen the county of Waterford, and approve of it very much. These kind of books are owing to an historical society founded in Dublin, and of great use to this kingdom, which is improving in all arts and sciences very fast : tho' I own to you, the cheapness of the French claret is not likely to add much at present to the increase of literature.'

From a private letter in The Orrery Papers

Edited by the Countess of Cork & Orrery, London, 1903.

That Lord Orrory was ignorant regarding the wealth of field antiquities in "the wee county" goes without saying. That he was keenly aware of contemporary publication trends in polite literature is, however, quite apparent. His allusions to the publication of antiquarian books on Counties Cork and Waterford demonstrate that Louthiana was not published in a vacuum. Rather, his remarks reflect the novel nature of Thomas Wright's work, setting it alongside the new 'county histories' then being published by Charles Smith.[*3] But Wright's Louthiana is very different in character to the 'county histories'. Moreover, it had little if anything to do with the 'historical society founded in Dublin' mentioned by Orrory. This was the colourfully named if short-lived Physico-Historical Society. Formally announced in 1744, it lasted less than a decade before its demise in 1752. While Charles Smith was certainly one of the more prolific members of this group, Thomas Wright was not. Moreover, Wright's patron, Lord Limerick appears to have had little contact with the group.

What Wright, Lord Limerick and groups such as the Physico-Historical Society did have in common was the novel way in which they approached the study of the past. As such they were part of a new pattern of enquiry that was manifest in Britain and Ireland in the late 17th and earlier part of the 18th century. Though essentially a product of cultural fashion, these enquiries were marked by a very progressive interest in understanding natural and cultural phenomenon. Their core values were the principals of empirical enquiry and rational deduction. Whether focusing on natural events such as the effects of lightening strikes, or the discovery of ancient human bones, it was driven by Enlightenment ideals filtered through the minds of brilliant if idiosyncratic individuals or small groups of intellectuals.[*4] Driven by these ideals, their researches contrasted with the static world-view then prevailing in many quarters of society that still clung to myths, old religious certainties and superstitions.

These groups included artists, medical doctors, astronomers as well as some members of the aristocracy. Amongst them, a number of individuals stand out: men such as William Camden, John Aubrey and William Stukeley. In Ireland, in particular, the backbone of these groups was drawn almost exclusively from the Protestant professional classes and the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. Lord Limerick's patronage of Wright in the 1740s can be directly paralleled by Colonel William Burton's employment of the artist, Gabriel Beranger, to draw monuments in the late 1770s.[*5] Though Beranger did produce a manuscript of his work, it was never independently published. However, some of his work found its way into the famous Grose's Antiquities of Ireland published in parts between 1794 and 1796 (edited by Edward Ledwich, 2nd edition 1804). The model for both these works was Wright's Louthiana which had created a format and had set a standard for recording antiquities which was unsurpassed until the advent of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland in the 1820s.

Notes

[*1] For useful reflections on the history of archaeological approaches to the study of the past, see the writings of Stuart Piggott, Ruins in a landscape: essays in antiquarianism, University Press, Edinburgh, 1976, pps. 101-2 and Ancient Britons and the antiquarian imagination, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989, pps. 23-4.

[*2] Charles Boyle, of Waterford, alias 'Lord Orrery' was the 4th Earl of Orrery

[*3] Both The Antient and Present State of the County and City of Waterford (1746) and The Antient and Present State of the County and City of Cork (1750: 2nd. ed. 1774)

were composed by Charles Smith, an apothecary from Dungarvan Co. Waterford. Smith was a prolific writer who also penned county histories of Down (1744) and Kerry (1756).

[*4] For instance, see Stuart Piggott's, William Stukeley: an eighteenth century antiquarian, Thames and Hudson, London, 2nd edition, 1985.

[*5] See Peter Harbison's introduction to Gabriel Beranger, Drawings of the principal antique buildings of Ireland, Four Courts Press/National Library of Ireland, Dublin, 1998.