Commentarius Rinuccinianus

Dr Brendan Bradshaw has kindly agreed to read the text for consistency as part of the editing process.

Brendan Bradshaw is a leading authority on early modern Irish and British history. Having written and taught extensively in this area, he retired in 2003 from his position as a fellow and Director of studies in History at Queen’s College, Cambridge and is now a Life Fellow of the college.

His doctoral thesis sought to investigate the impact of the 'revolution in government’ in Ireland during the sixteenth century and subsequently appeared in print as his second book in 1979 entitled, The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century. His first book The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland under Henry VIII was published in 1974 which he wrote as a result of new evidence discovered during his graduate research about the dissolution of the Irish religious houses.

Other themes recur in Dr Bradshaw’s work: the significance of history and experience for identity, particularly in Ireland; the inadequacies of Whig history; the importance of thorough documentary analysis as the only basis for decent history, although this is coupled with an awareness of the value of literary sources for the historian. All these themes fed into his teaching of a generation of Queens' undergraduates and postgraduates. The research and development of Irish and British history which developed from within Dr Bradshaw’s teaching contributed extensively to the recognition of the ‘British problem’ and the unique interconnected aspects of politics, culture, religion and identity within the Stuart Kingdoms in the seventeenth century. The research derived from this culminated in a highly influential text, The British Problem, c.1534-1707 edited by Dr Bradshaw and Professor John Morrill, his Cambridge colleague. Other key texts written and edited by Dr Bradshaw include; Representing Ireland, Bradshaw, B., Hadfield, A. & Maley, W., (CUP, 1993) and ‘Nationalism and Historical Scholarship in Modern Ireland’, HIS (24, XXVI, 106, 1989). Dr Bradshaw’s research and teaching on the political, religious and cultural dimensions of the wars of the 1640s coupled with his specialist knowledge on European humanism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contribute significantly to the editorial process.