Goddard Henry Orpen (8 May 1852 – 15 May 1932) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He attended The Abbey School, Tipperary and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin. Orpen was the son of Dr. John Herbert Orpen (1805–1888) and Ellen Susanna Gertude Richards (?–1855) and a

second cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

Sir William Orpen Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do i ...

. He married his first cousin once removed, Adela Elizabeth Richards, on 18 August 1880. Orpen's main work was ''Ireland under the Normans'', a four-volume work of a total of ''c''. 1500 pages, first published by

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

1911–20, and then reissued in 1968. ''Ireland under the Normans'' generated political controversy when it was published, as Orpen "affronted many fellow Irishmen with his contrast between Ireland’s ‘progress, vigour and comparative order’ under Anglo-Norman rule, and ‘retrogression, stagnation, and comparative anarchy’ under ‘the recrudescence of Celtic tribalism’ in the two centuries after 1333". A new one-volume edition was published by

Four Courts Press Four Courts Press is an independent Irish academic publishing house, with its office at Malpas Street, Dublin 8, Ireland. Founded in 1970 by Michael Adams, who died in February 2009, its early publications were primarily theological, notably t ...

in 2005.Four Courts press
He also edited and translated ''

The Song of Dermot and the Earl ''The Song of Dermot and the Earl'' (french: Chanson de Dermot et du comte) is an anonymous Anglo-Norman verse chronicle written in the early 13th century in England. It tells of the arrival of Richard de Clare (Strongbow) in Ireland in 1170 (the ...

'' in 1892. Orpen died a widower at Monksgrange House, Grange Demesne, County Wexford, on 15 May 1932, aged 80.

References

External links

Orpen's edition of "Song of Dermot and the Earl" at CELT
* ''Ireland under the Normans'', available in PDF from the Internet Archive
vol. 1vol. 2vol. 3vol. 4
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Orpen, Goddard Henry 19th-century Irish historians 20th-century Irish historians 1932 deaths 1852 births 19th-century Irish people 20th-century Irish people Castellologists People educated at The Abbey School (Tipperary) Alumni of Trinity College Dublin

See also

References

External links