‘Another way of telling the story’. Review of: Sources in Irish Art 2: A Reader, edited by Fintan Cullen and Róisín Kennedy, Cork: Cork University Press, 2021, 424pp., 21 illus., €39.00 hdbk, £20.70 Kindle, ISBN: 9781782054573.

Abstract

This review considers Sources in Irish Art 2: A Reader, edited by Fintan Cullen and Róisín Kennedy, as a key contribution to the historiography of Irish art. This book, which includes excerpts of texts on Irish art and visual culture from the mid-seventeenth to the early twenty-first centuries, provides readers with a valuable guide to the multiplicity of printed materials. These texts include letters, exhibition catalogue essays, and artist statements, as well as art historical reflections. As such, the book points to the importance of broad archival practices in the field of Irish art history. The review essay is prefaced with an overview of the past decade of publishing on Irish art, architecture, and visual studies, making the point that a book like Sources in Irish Art 2: A Reader provides an important map to the intellectual roots of many current debates.