Revd Dr Brian Mac Cuarta, SJ

Chaplain and Fellow in Early Modern History

brian.maccuarta@campion.ox.ac.uk

About

Brian Mac Cuarta SJ comes to Campion Hall having served in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Jesuit Archives, Rome) as director, and as academic director (2010-2021). There he oversaw the preparation of archival and online resources for Jesuit history, chiefly for the restored Society of Jesus (post 1814), including preparing the correspondence files of the Jesuit provinces worldwide (1939-1958) for access by researchers.

An Irish Jesuit, he has spent ten years in Northern Ireland, based in Portadown, and was engaged in cross-community work, and Irish-language activities.

Early modern Ireland has been his research area, with interests in the Catholic community (including links with England, Scotland, and Rome), and in colonial society in the period before the breakdown of 1641. As part of a broader project on the social history of Catholicism in early Stuart Ireland, his current research is on conversion to Catholicism in the Caroline era.

He gained his PhD from Trinity College Dublin (2004) and was awarded the DLitt degree by the National University of Ireland (2022). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Selected Publications

Books:

Marian Lyons and Brian Mac Cuarta (eds), The Jesuit mission in early modern Ireland, 1560-1760 (Dublin, 2022)

(ed.), Henry Piers’ Continental Travels, 1595-1598 (Cambridge, 2018)

(ed.), Reshaping Ireland 1550-1700: essays presented to Nicholas Canny (Dublin, 2011)

Catholic revival in the north of Ireland 1603-41 (Dublin, 2007)

(ed.), Ulster 1641: aspects of the Rising (Belfast, 1993; 3rd ed. 2020)

Articles:

(ed.), ‘Mathew De Renzy’s letters on Irish affairs 1613-1620’, Analecta Hibernica, 34 (1987), 107-82

‘A planter’s interaction with Gaelic culture: Sir Matthew De Renzy (1577-1634)’, Irish Economic and Social History, vol 20 (1993), 1-17

‘The plantation of Leitrim, 1620-41’, Irish Historical Studies, vol 32 no 127 (2001), 297-320

(ed.), ‘Old English catholicism in Chester documents, 1609-19’, Archivium Hibernicum, no 57 (2003), 1-10

‘Religious violence against settlers in south Ulster, 1641-2’, in David Edwards et al (eds), Age of atrocity (Dublin, 2007), pp 154-75

‘‘Sword’ and ‘word’ in the 1610s: Matthew De Renzy and Irish reform’, in Brian Mac Cuarta (ed.), Reshaping Ireland 1550-1700 (Dublin, 2011), pp 101-30

‘The Catholic Church in Ulster under the plantation, 1609-42’, in Eamonn Ó Ciardha and Micheál Ó Siochrú (eds), The plantation of Ulster: ideology and practice (Manchester, 2012), pp 119-42

(ed.), ‘The Irish revenues of Oliver St John, Viscount Grandison for 1625-9’, Analecta Hibernica, 45 (2014), 147-206

(ed.), ‘Irish government lists of Catholic personnel, c.1613’, Archivium Hibernicum, 68 (2015), 63-102

‘Scots Catholics in Ulster, 1603-41’, in David Edwards (ed.), The Scots in early Stuart Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2016), pp 141-68

‘Select Document: Catholic ownership of tithes: a Co. Wexford widow’s dispensation, 1595’, Irish Historical Studies, 42: 162 (2018), 336-44

‘Irish soldiers in Loreto and Rome: a pilgrimage, and an employment request, c.1609’, British Catholic History, 34: 4 (Oct. 2019), 587-98

‘Jesuit conversions in Wentworth’s Ireland: the Slingsby family, County Cork’, in Mary Ann Lyons and Brian Mac Cuarta (eds), The Jesuit mission in early modern Ireland, 1560-1760 (Dublin, 2022), pp 167-92

Contributions to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; and Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2009)

Revd Dr Brian Mac Cuarta, SJ

About

Books:

Articles:

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