Nature of Event: Come and join us for a great seminar on this coming Tuesday, 18 September. Dr Craig D’Alton will be talking on the topic: ‘The D’Altons of Dublin: An Irish Regency Romance’
Catherine and John D’Alton were an Irish Catholic gentry couple, based in Dublin. John held a small estate in Westmeath, but worked as a barrister. Later in life he would become a noted historian. Catherine came from a wealthy landed background in Connaught, and was a highly educated and articulate member of her class. More than 300 remarkably intimate letters survive between the couple from the period of their marriage, 1818-1859. This paper introduces John and Catherine, narrating their courtship and the first year of their marriage. Their letters reveal the story of a young couple starting out: courting, getting married, establishing a house, and securing their income. They also reveal the construction of a complex set of identities, both individual and corporate, as the bonds of family, affinity, land, religion and money blur conventional boundaries and build a complex and sometimes unexpected social web.
The Melbourne Irish Studies Seminars are co-convened by Philip Bull (La Trobe University), Frances Devlin-Glass (Deakin University), Dianne Hall (Victoria University), Elizabeth Malcolm (University of Melbourne), and Ronan McDonald, (University of Melbourne),
Time: 18 September 2018, at 6pm. Join us for drinks ahead. After the seminar, the speaker usually joins any interested audience members for dinner at a local cafe or hotel.
Where: The Oratory at Newman College, Swanston St, Carlton.
Cost: As always this is a free public seminar open to everyone.
Tinteán 