Dublin Gothic is a public humanities initiative funded by the Irish Research Council and the European Research Council. Led by Dr Katie Mishler in collaboration with Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) and UCD Centre for Cultural Analytics, this project fosters collaboration between academic scholars and the heritage sector to create new avenues of public engagement.

The exhibition’s multimedia components illustrate this duality between the written city as an imaginative entity and the lived, physical experience of Dublin across time, resulting in an understanding of urban space as a layered palimpsest in which the spectre of the past is always present. 

Notably, Dublin Gothic is the first large-scale project exclusively dedicated to delineating a history of Irish urban gothic writing radiating from the city of Dublin. By teasing out a new lineage of Irish writing, this project demonstrates how the legacy of nineteenth and twentieth-century gothic informs contemporary literature, culture, and politics. 

This project began on 1 April 2020, days after Ireland’s first lockdown. Considerations of the geospatial and sociopolitical dimensions of the urban gothic are timely, as fears over proximity and contagion are resonant within COVID-era public health restrictions and their impact on imaginary and lived cities.

Funding for this exhibition is provided by the European Research Council advanced grant, VICTEUR: European Migrants in the British Imagination: Victorian and Neo-Victorian Culture as well as an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Enterprise Partnership Fellowship grant, Mapping Dublin Gothic: 1820-1900. MoLI’s digital programme is support by Ebow, the Digital Agency.

Dr Katie Mishler is currently the Keough-Naughton Institute National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at University of Notre Dame (2022-3). For the duration of the Dublin Gothic project, she held an Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Postdoctoral Fellowship in collaboration with Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) and UCD Centre for Cultural Analytics (2020-2022). A public-humanities specialist, she curated the MoLI exhibition Into the Island: Peig Sayers and the Blasket Island Tradition, and has researched and assisted on other projects including Love, Says Bloom. She has written extensively on James Joyce, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, gothic writing, and Irish culture, and is currently writing a monograph on Irish urban gothic writing.

Credits

Curation Dr Katie Mishler
Academic Lead Professor Gerardine Meaney
Creative Direction Benedict Schlepper-Connolly
Developer Stuart Cusack
Audio Producers Ian Dunphy & Benedict Schlepper-Connolly
Sound Recording, Editing & Mixing Ian Dunphy
Sound Design Ian Dunphy
Videography Ian Dunphy
Video Grading Néstor Romero Clemente
Audio Mastering Seán Mac Erlaine
Research Assistant Emma Watkins
Production Assistants Laura Harvey-Graham, Anthony Nolan, Emer O'Hanlon.
Editorial Assistant John Scanlon

Images National Library of Ireland, Library of Congress, Dr. Katie Mishler.

Special thanks to John Connolly, Dervla Crotty, Brian Crowley, Sinéad Crowley, Néstor Clemente, Sarah Davis-Goff, Professor Nicholas Daly, Ned Dennehy, Dr Dara Downey, Jonny Dillon, Michael James Ford, Owlen Fouéré, Domitille Garmy, Dr Noreen Giffney, Vona Groarke, Flora Gusmāo, Seán Hewitt, Constance Keane, Margaret Kelleher, Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Dr Jason McElligott, Iulia Molnar, Dr Tina Morin, Sarah Moss, Liz Nugent, Roxanna Nic Liam, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Gillian O’Brien, Simon O’Connor, Office of Public Works, Emer O’Hanlon, Gráinne O’Kelly, Simeon O’Neill, John Scanlon, Ciara Scott, Brian J. Showers, Dr Sinéad Sturgeon, Laura Harvey-Graham, Anthony Nolan, UCD Centre for Cultural Analytics, UCD Humanities Institute, and Sophie White.