The American Conference for Irish Studies 2023 James S. Donnelly Sr Prize for Best Book on History and Social Science, was awarded to Peter Gray for William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (UCD Press, 2023), at the ACIS National Conference, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, 21 June 2024.
The committee noted: ‘It was so refreshing to be introduced to a 19th-century Ulster landowner with such a sense of moral rectitude, best summed up overall by Gray’s concluding sentence: ‘Sharman Crawford’s was a radical political life worthy of modern attention’ (367). He proved that point admirably and cohesively in a beautifully written biography steeped in research, much of it difficult to come by. Moreover, his book is redolent with vital factual information about conditions in Ireland, primarily in Ulster, but also, beyond, that were germane to the life and career of Sharman Crawford. In the process, he completely justifies his decision to pursue “a four generational approach” to his subject (5). Overall, Gray uses biography to explain the evolution of Irish patriotic movements more broadly and reflect on heterogeneous strands in those movements that were increasingly subsumed as Irish nationalism evolved into the later 19th and 20th century. The person of Crawford is used as a way to push back against dichotomous and largely 20th century visions of Irish nationalism as fundamentally Catholic. He is also used as a way to explore the influence of radical international intellectual movements on Irish politics.’
https://www.ucdpress.ie/page/detail/william-sharman-crawford/?k=9781910820438
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