Aidan Enright awarded BAIS Book Prize 2023
Aidan Enright has been awarded the British Association for Irish Studies Book Prize 2023, for his book Charles Owen O Conor, ‘The O Conor Don’: Landlordism, liberal Catholicism and Unionism in nineteenth-century Ireland (Four Courts Press).
The prize was presented at a reception in the Irish Embassy in London on Tuesday.
The book uncovers the world of Charles Owen O’Conor, the O‘Conor Don (1838–1906), one of the most prominent Catholic landlords and Liberal MPs of his generation.
O’Conor was a wealthy, fair-minded landlord who served as MP for his native County Roscommon between 1860 and 1880. In parliament, he supported reforms in education, juvenile care, factory law, Sunday closing, the Irish language and landownership.
However, as a loyalist, unionist and imperialist, he was out of step with the mood and aims of popular Irish nationalism, especially on the issue of home rule. Indeed, although he was a devout Catholic, proud Irishman and critic of the union, his liberal Catholic and unionist outlook ensured that he became an increasingly marginalized figure as Irish politics polarized along Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionist lines.
Aidan Enright holds a PhD in history from Queen’s University Belfast and is currently an associate researcher at Leeds Beckett University.
