An Irishman’s Diary on the debt we owe to George Petrie, the ‘father of Irish archaeology’

The great Irish scholar George Petrie, often called “the father of Irish archaeology”, died 150 years ago on January 17th. As well as being an archaeologist, he was a painter, musician and antiquarian, and his work for the topographical section of the Irish Ordnance Survey in the 1830s and 1840s had an enormous influence and contributed greatly to what became known in Irish culture as the “Celtic Revival”.

He was born in 1790 and grew up near Mountjoy Square, the son of an Aberdeen portrait painter who had settled in Dublin.

Petrie junior soon showed a propensity for painting and was sent to the Dublin Society Schools to receive his artistic training, winning the schools’ silver medal at the age of 14. He also liked to visit the countryside, where he began to examine and take notes on antiquities he had come across.

In his early twenties, he went to London with his friends and fellow painters Francis Danby and James Arthur O'Connor, but soon returned to Dublin where he made his living mainly by illustrating travel books, such as Cromwell's Excursions Through Ireland and Brewer's Beauties of Ireland.

He exhibited regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy (founded in 1823), of which he became an associate in 1826 and full member in 1828, "the first time a watercolour painter had been so honoured", according to Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin (The Painters of Ireland, 1660-1920). He became librarian of the RHA in 1830 and later its president.

He was also active in the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), being elected to its council in 1829. He rejuvenated its antiquities committee and oversaw the acquisition of many important Irish manuscripts, including an autograph copy of the Annals of the Four Masters (Annála Ríoghachta Éireann), and examples of medieval craft metalwork, especially the Cross of Cong. He also contributed articles on Irish antiquities and archaeology to the Dublin Penny Journal, which was founded in 1832.

Between 1833 and 1843, he was employed as head of the Topographical Department (the antiquities section) of the Irish Ordnance Survey. He recruited the Irish-language scholars and historians, John O'Donovan and Eugene O'Curry, to do research into Irish place names, topography and history. This research was "an important ingredient in the strong national awareness of the 1840s and 1850s", wrote the art historian Jeanne Sheehy (The Rediscovery of Ireland's Past: The Celtic Revival 1830-1930).

The work that Petrie did on the round towers of Ireland was especially important because it dispelled the mysteries and many theories (some rather wild) of their origin and uses and established their Christian origins as belfries and places of protection for people and precious goods. Among the artists influenced by the writings of Petrie, O'Donovan and O'Curry were Andrew Nicholl from Belfast and Henry O'Neill from Clonmel. O'Neill's drawings of the ancient Irish sculptured high crosses were extremely accurate but also, in Jeanne Sheehy's words, "highly romantic . . . with dramatic groupings and changes of scale", which would also apply to Petrie's treatment in his famous painting, The Last Round of the Pilgrims at Clonmacnoise (circa 1838).

There can be little doubt that the well-known Cork painter Daniel Maclise was also influenced by Petrie's research, and this influence may be seen in his magnificent The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife (circa 1854), now in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Petrie's great work, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, was published in 1845. His survey of the megalithic tomb complex at Carrowmore on the Coolera peninsula in Co Sligo still influences research at the site today.

He made another huge contribution to Irish culture by collecting and recording old Irish airs and melodies, to which he devoted the later part of his life. His friend and companion, the great Irish physician William Stokes, described in his 1868 biography of Petrie how he painstakingly collected this musical material: “The song having been given, O’Curry wrote the Irish words, when Petrie’s work began. The singer recommenced, stopping at a signal from him at every two or three bars of the melody to permit the writing of the notes, and often repeating the passage until it was correctly taken down.”

He died at Rathmines in Dublin and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

In this significant year in Irish history and at around the mid-way mark of the so-called “decade of centenaries”, it seems fitting that one who contributed so much to arousing and spreading an interest in Irish art, architecture, archaeology and music should be remembered and honoured.