"The Bordeaux–Dublin Letters" consists of 125 letters that offer a snapshot of everyday life among the long-established Irish community in Bordeaux during the Seven Years’ War.
The Bordeaux–Dublin Letters, 1757: Correspondence of an Irish Community Abroad, a collection edited by New York University faculty members John Shovlin and Thomas M. Truxes and Trinity College emeritus professor Louis M. Cullen for the British Academy’s Records of Social and Economic History series (Oxford University Press, 2013), has been selected to receive the Prix Brives Cazes (est. 1875), awarded by the Académie Nationale des Sciences Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux.
The Bordeaux–Dublin Letters consists of 125 letters seized by an English privateer from a ship sailing between Bordeaux and Dublin in 1757. They offer an extraordinary snapshot of the everyday life and concerns of the long-established Irish community in Bordeaux during the Seven Years’ War. The prize jury was impressed by the “exceptional character” of the documents and their contextualization. John Shovlin (History Department) and Thomas M. Truxes (History Department and Irish Studies) are both members of the faculty of New York University. Truxes, who discovered the letters while researching at the UK National Archives in 2011, supervised “The Bordeaux-Dublin Letters Project,” which included an NYU Bobst Library public exhibition, an NYU Glucksman Ireland House academic conference, and the publication of the book, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Glucksman Ireland House and the Irish Studies Program at New York University.
Co-editor Louis M. Cullen, Professor Emeritus of Modern Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin, will accept the prize on behalf of the editors at the Académie de Bordeaux’s December 18 meeting. The Académie de Bordeaux was founded in 1712, with Montesquieu serving as one of its early members (elected 1716), and its director on four occasions between 1726 and 1748.