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Louis Cullen


Louis Michael Cullen (born 1932) is an Irish diplomat, academic, historian, author and Japanologist. He is Professor of Modern Irish History at Trinity College in Dublin.Nicholas Canny has described him as "the most prolific, most wide-ranging, and the most enterprising historian of his generation in Ireland."

Cullen's family came from New Ross in County Wexford. He took a Master's degree at University College Galway with a thesis on smuggling in 18th century Galway, where he was also the auditor of the History Society in 1953/54. Then he took a doctorate at the London School of Economics.

Cullen was posted to the Irish embassy in Paris as a diplomat, he developed an interest in the former trading links between Ireland and France.

In 1963, he joined the history department at Trinity College as a lecturer. In 1972, he was appointed professor of Irish History; and he became a Senior Fellow. In 1970 he was a co-founder of the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland. A speaker of Japanese, he has also written a history of Japan between 1582 and 1941. His book "An Economic History of Ireland Since 1660" has been reprinted and used widely as a textbook for students of Irish history.

Cullen's close study of economic trends has led to a more nuanced understanding of aspects of Irish life in 1700-1850. A traditional view had been that the economic decline of Dublin from 1801 was linked to the 1800 Act of Union with Britain, and the loss of the Parliament of Ireland and local political control. Cullen considered that the decline was inevitable, given the new steam-powered industrial revolution, and would have happened even if no union had occurred, and if Grattan's parliament had managed to secure a high level of Irish autonomy.


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