Susan Flavin – författare

This open access book is the first major history of food in early modern Ireland, a country deeply affected by the traumas and transformations that swept Europe and the wider world in the 16th and 17th centuries. It draws on a diversity of literature and documentary evidence as well as the findings of cutting-edge archaeological research to challenge centuries-old stereotypes and long-held assumptions about diet, consumption and its meaning.Food and Drink in Early Modern Ireland reveals that the basic question of what to eat and drink mattered more than ever in a country swept by war, colonization, and religious upheaval; the diet of Ireland’s people took on a more profound and complex significance as a consequence. By analysing the way they baked their bread, reared animals for meat, swilled beer, smoked with friends, adhered to arduous fasts and gathered for indulgent feasts, Susan Flavin and Charlie Taverner show these routines and rituals became powerful markers of identity and difference, between rich and poor, civilized and barbaric, Protestant and Catholic, native and newcomer. Flavin and Taverner reflect on how Ireland consumed the latest trends, fashions, and intellectual currents of the time, bound up in quickening networks of global trade. They convincingly contend that, far from being an isolated backwater on the fringe of Europe, Ireland experienced intensely the transformations that shook the Atlantic world in the 16th and 17th centuries. This history not only provides a new chapter in the story of food and drink, but also helps us understand what made this period so distinctive while breaking new ground in how we study consumption in the past.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.

A detailed study of changing patterns of consumption, showing how these related to wider political, social and economic developments.This book, based on extensive original research, argues that everyday Irish consumption underwent major changes in the 16th century. The book considers the changing nature of imported goods in relation especially to two major activities of daily living: dress and diet. It integrates quantitative data on imports with qualitative sources, including wills, archaeological and pictorial evidence, and contemporary literature and legislation. It shows that changes in Irish consumption mirrored changes occurring in England and across Europe and that they were a function of broader developments in the Irish economy, including the increasing participation of Irish merchants in European markets. The book also discusses how consumption was related to wider political, economic and cultural developments in Ireland, showing how the acquisition and interpretation of material goods were key factors in the mediation of political and social boundaries in a semi-colonised and contested society.Susan Flavin completed her doctorate in early modern history at the University of Bristol.