Obituary: Tom Dunne, retired UCC professor and author who began his teaching life as a Christian Brother

Irish Independent

04-05-2025

Tom Dunne, Emeritus Professor of History at UCC
His books include an award-­winning history of the 1798 rebellion in his native Co Wexford which also featured memories from his own life — a personal dimension that made the book particularly interesting. His most recent research was on Irish landscape art from the 18th ­century, featuring the demesnes of great ­houses.
Tom Dunne was born a week before Christmas, on December 18, 1942, into a family farm at Courtdale, Co ­Wexford, 13km outside New Ross.
His mother had a small shop on Bridge Street in the town, and in ­order to avoid the daily bicycle journey, the family moved into the living space upstairs. The number of children increased to six within eight years, so the Dunnes moved again — to a large 18th-century building where they lived over a much bigger shop.
Living in the town made it easier to access education. Having initially attended infant school at the Mercy Convent, Tom transferred at age six to the local CBS where over the next six years he witnessed 'beatings with the infamous leather, not for bad behaviour but for missing questions or getting homework wrong'. Though he seems to have been more gently treated himself, perhaps because of being a son of a local shopkeeper.
Despite those experiences and against the advice of his parents, he joined the Christian Brothers himself at the age of 14. There was an important connection through his family tree to Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice, founder of the congregation, who set up its first school in Waterford in 1802.
Imbued with religious fervour, young teenager Dunne moved to the seminary of Coláiste Chiaráin, the new name for what was formerly an 18th-century mansion owned by the Plunkett family at Old Conna, Bray, Co Wicklow, where what was once a ballroom had become a chapel.
Unlike other Christian Brothers schools at the time, there was no corporal punishment for the aspiring brothers in Coláiste Chiaráin.
Dunne was later moved to teacher-­training college at Marino in Dublin — and then a month before his 18th birthday was assigned to teach the Primary Certificate (an optional exam sat in sixth class) at inner-city Francis Street, while residing in the congregation's monastery at Synge Street.
Corporal punishment was still a common practice and Dunne was supplied with a leather strap. He ­recalled the experience later.
'I did try using it briefly, only to find that I was temperamentally unsuited to hitting the boys, finding it personally upsetting and humiliating, as well as cruel.'
Two years later he was moved to Tralee where he taught at secondary school level. He also taught and resided briefly at the St Joseph's industrial school in order to allow permanent staff take a holiday. The atmosphere in the school and his experience of the way boys were treated upset him greatly. He was then moved on to ­Sexton Street CBS in Limerick.
In 1963, at age 21, he invited his ­parents to Limerick and told them over lunch that he was leaving the Brothers. He became a history student at UCD and later moved to Cork, where he acquired a teaching diploma and taught at secondary level.
He did his master's degree at UCC, writing a thesis on four-times UK prime minister William Gladstone (1809-98), who was heavily involved with Irish issues such as Home Rule and land reform in the course of his long career.
Dunne went on to acquire a PhD at Peterhouse College in Cambridge and was appointed a lecturer in history at UCC in 1977, where he often taught through Irish. He later became Professor of History at UCC. He wrote about Maria Edgeworth, particularly her novel Castle Rackrent , which covers four generations of landlords in ­Ireland and was published in 1800.
In 2004, his book Rebellions: ­Memoir, Memory, and 1798 , a combination of recollections and history, won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs ­Memorial Prize, named after the ­British ambassador to Ireland who was assassinated by the IRA in 1976.
Another highly-readable memoir, The Good Boy: A Life Re-examined , was published last year.
Tom Dunne died on April 15 and in a statement the National University of Ireland recalled his contributions as a member of the NUI Senate from 1998 to 2007 and how he edited the landmark The National University of Ireland 1908-2008 Centenary Essays , as well as his work as a lecturer and later as dean of arts at UCC.
He is survived by his wife Clare O'Halloran, ­daughters Fiona and Deirdre, sons Oisín and ­Fergus, grandson Seán, siblings Mary ­(Quigley), John, Joan (Estall), ­Rosaleen and Arthur, and by in-laws and friends.