Margaret Murphy
Medieval Rural Settlement Project Historian
Contact Details
Telephone: +353 1 639 3039
Email: margaret@discoveryprogramme.ie
Biography
I was an undergraduate and postgraduate at Trinity College, Dublin where I undertook doctoral research on the ecclesiastical history of Dublin in the medieval period. In 1987 I completed my Ph.D. thesis on the Archbishops of Dublin in the thirteenth century. The following year I was appointed as a research assistant in the Centre for Metropolitan History , Institute of Historical Research, University of London. I worked on a series of projects which explored the agrarian and economic history of the London region in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the ways in which the city of London was provisioned. I progressed to research associate and project director and increased my expertise in the use of primary historical sources, computer databases and computer-based mapping. I returned to live in Ireland in 2001 and in 2003 was appointed to work on the Medieval Rural Settlement Project as historian on the Dublin module and the southeast module. Since 2006, when I ceased to work full-time for the Discovery Programme, I have been undertaking freelance historical research for a number of private and public sector archaeological, historical and heritage organisations. In addition, I have lectured for the History Department and the Department of Adult Education, NUI, Maynooth. My current research interests include food production and farming in Anglo-Norman Ireland, the relationships between town and country, medieval manors in Ireland and the role of women in the medieval Irish countryside.Publications
Books:
A Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region c.1300, (Historical Geography Research Group, Research Series Monograph no. 30, 1993) [with B.Campbell, J. Galloway & D.Keene].
Kentish Demesne Accounts to 1350: A Catalogue, (Centre for Metropolitan History, 1993) [with J. Galloway & O. Myhill]
Book Chapters:
‘Balancing the Concerns of Church and State, the Archbishops of Dublin 1181-1228’, in T.B. Barry, R. Frame & K. Simms eds. Colony and Frontier in Medieval Ireland: Essays presented to J. F. Lydon (The Hambledon Press, 1995), pp. 41-56.
‘Feeding Medieval Cities: Some Historical Approaches’ in Martha Carlin & Joel T. Rosenthal, eds. Food and Eating in Medieval Europe, (Hambledon Press, 1998) pp. 117-132.
‘Archbishops and Anglicisation: Dublin, 1181-1271’ in James Kelly & Daire Keogh, eds. History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin, (Four Courts Press, 2000) pp. 72-91.
Contributions to New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). New articles on John Cumin, Walter Jorz, Henry de Loundres, David Maccarwell, Fulk of Sandford, John of Sandford and Philip of Slane. Revised articles on: William Bermingham, Ralph of Bristol, Richard de Ferings, Malachy Macaedh, Matthew O’Heney.
Contributions to Routledge Encyclopedia of Medieval Ireland, ed. Sean Duffy (2005). Articles on Central Government, Chief Governor, John Cumin, Henry of London, Lordship of Ireland and Parliaments.
‘Investigating living standards in medieval Dublin and its region’ in Sean Duffy ed. Medieval Dublin VI, (Four Courts Press, 2005) pp. 224-256 [with Michael Potterton].
‘The profits of lordship. Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and the lordship of Carlow 1270-1306’ in Linda Doran and James Lyttleton, (eds.) Lordship in medieval Ireland: image and reality (Dublin, 2007), pp 75-98.
‘Tullow from medieval manor to market town’ in Thomas McGrath ed. Carlow History and Society, (Dublin, 2008) pp 235-257.
‘Digging with documents: late medieval historical research on the M3 in County Meath’ in Jerry O’Sullivan and Michael Stanley (eds) Roads, Rediscovery and Research, Archaeology and the NRA Monograph Series No. 5 (Dublin, 2008) pp 117-127.
Contribution to the introduction of Shipwreck Inventory of Ireland. Louth, Meath, Dublin and Wicklow, compiled by Karl Brady (Dublin, 2008)
Peer Review Journals:
‘The High Cost of Dying: an Analysis of pro anima Bequests in Medieval Dublin’, Studies in Church History, 24 (1987) pp. 111-123.
‘Ecclesiastical Censures: an Aspect of their Use in Thirteenth Century Dublin’, Archivium Hibernicum, xliv (1989) pp. 89-97.
‘Feeding the City: Medieval London and its Agrarian Hinterland’, The London Journal, 16, no. 1 (1991), pp. 3-14. [with J. Galloway].
‘Rotulus clauses de anno 48 Edward III – a reconstruction’, Analecta Hibernica, 35 (1992), pp. 89-154. [with E. Dowse].
'Marketing animals and animal products in London's hinterland circa 1300', Anthropozoologica, 16 (1992), 93-99 [with J. Galloway].
‘Rural Land-use in the Metropolitan Hinterland, 1270-1339: the Evidence of Inquisitiones Post Mortem’, Agricultural History Review, 40, pt. 1 (1992) pp. 1-22. [with B.M.S. Campbell & J. Galloway]
'The Fuel Supply of Medieval London 1300-1400’, Franco-British Studies, 20 (1995), pp. 84-96.
'Fuelling the city: production and distribution of firewood and fuel in London's region 1290-1400', Economic History Review xlix (1996), pp. 447-72, [with J. Galloway & D.Keene ].
‘Castles and Deer parks in Anglo-Norman Ireland’, Eolas: The Journal of the American Society for Irish Medieval Studies, Vol. 1, (2006), pp 53-72 [with Kieran O’Conor]
Other Publications:
'Feeding Dublin: investigating the hinterland of Dublin in the medieval period' Heritage Outlook, (Winter2005/Spring2006), 13 [with Michael Potterton].
On-line Publications:
‘Food, fuel and the agrarian hinterland in the fourteenth century: approaches and achievements of the Feeding the City projects 1988-94’ Online Proceedings of the CMH Tenth Anniversary Conference. Accessed at http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/cmh.main.html
Reviews:
D.M. Palliser, The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Vol. 1 600-1540, in The Ricardian, xii, no. 156, (2002) pp. 432-5.
Gillian Kenny, Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Women in Ireland c. 1170-1540, in Eolas: The Journal of the American Society for Irish Medieval Studies, Vol. 2, (2008).
Professional
Committee member of the Group for the Study of Irish Historical Settlement.
Member of the Oxford Diet Group.
Member of the Agricultural History Society of Ireland.