Dorothy Parsons of Birr: writing, networks, identity, 1640–1670

Abstract

This article uses documents – recipe book, account book and will – produced by Dorothy Parsons (1640–1670), born in Birr, County Offaly, to argue that she actively utilises the emergent genres of account book and recipe book to produce and maintain her family identity during the disruptive years of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Rather than reading these texts for evidence or content, this article examines textual process and materiality, looking at compilation and copying practices, networks and social context in order to position her writing as implicated in questions of land use, trade, ownership and future territorial claims. The article suggests that life writing needs to be understood in an expansive way with regard to form, and with regard to the representation of identity, and asserts that such texts encode a complex interplay between individual and familial or communal identities.

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