Steve Bell, the British cartoonist, has observed that ‘cartoons can say things that are perhaps less easy to say in a more straightforward journalistic context’. In this lecture, Felix Larkin will outline the history of Irish cartoons (from Mathew Carey’s Volunteers’ Journal to Martyn Turner in the Irish Times) and of cartoons about the Irish (from Daniel O’Connell to Brexit). Cartoons such as those that will feature in the lecture are undervalued as a historical source. While good history – like good journalism – has to be nuanced, reflecting the complexity of the situation or issue under consideration, a cartoon cuts through the verbiage with a simple truth that overrides complexity and gets to the heart of the matter. Cartoons, therefore, can give us great insight into contemporary perceptions of past events, and the arguments – and passions – engendered by those events, as well as providing opportunities for historians to enhance their work with engaging images.

Felix M. Larkin, FRHistS, is a former chairman of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, and has published widely on the history of the press in Ireland and other topics. He has essays in all three volumes of The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press. His essay, ‘The Asinine Law: Irish legal cartoons’, will be published later this year in Confluences of law and history: Irish legal History Society discourses and other papers, 2011-21 (Niamh Howlin and Felix M. Larkin, eds).

· Cartoon image: ‘Harp and guns’, by Nicola Jennings

This seminar is available in hybrid form: both in-person in 27 University Square, 01/003, and online via Teams. Please indicate preference when registering. All welcome.