Robert Fitzroy Foster FBA FRHistS FRSL (born 16 January 1949) - generally known as Roy Foster - is the Carroll Professor of Irish History

History of Ireland

The first known settlement in Ireland began around 8000 BC, when hunter-gatherers arrived from continental Europe, probably via a land bridge. Few archaeological traces remain of this group, but their descendants and later Neolithic arrivals, particularly from the Iberian Peninsula, were...

 at Hertford College, Oxford

Hertford College, Oxford

Hertford College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the original Bodleian Library. As of 2006, the college had a financial endowment of £52m. There are 612 students , plus various visiting...

 in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

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Background and education

Born in Waterford

Waterford

Waterford is a city in the South-East Region of Ireland. It is the oldest city in the country and fifth largest by population. Waterford City Council is the local government authority for the city and its immediate hinterland...

, Roy Foster is the son of two teachers: Betty Foster (née Fitzroy), a primary teacher, and 'Fef' (Ernest) Foster, a teacher of Irish. Foster attended Newtown School

Newtown School, Waterford

Newtown School is a multidenominational, coeducational independent school with both boarding and day pupils in Waterford, Ireland. It is run by a Board of Management, but owned by the Religious Society of Friends.- History :...

, now a multi-denominational school, originally founded as a Quaker school in the late 18th century. Foster won a scholarship to attend St. Andrew's School for a year before reading history at Trinity College

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

, Dublin. He was awarded an M.A. and Ph.D. by Trinity College, where he was taught by T. W. Moody and F.S.L. Lyons. Prior to his appointment to the Carroll professorship, he was Professor of Modern British History at Birkbeck College

Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...

, University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, and held visiting fellowships at St Antony's College, Oxford

St Antony's College, Oxford

St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.St Antony's is the most international of the seven all-graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the...

, the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

, Princeton, and Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. Based in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 as well as at Hertford College in Oxford, Foster visits Ireland frequently. He has been married to the novelist and critic Aisling Foster (née Donelan) since 1972 and they have two children. His work is generally published under the name R. F. Foster. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

.

Foster is considered one of the foremost "revisionist

Historical revisionism

In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...

" Irish historians. As well as early biographies of Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...

 and Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill MP was a British statesman. He was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and his wife Lady Frances Anne Emily Vane , daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry...

, Foster is the editor of The Oxford History of Ireland (1989) and author of Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (1988) as well as several books of essays. More recently, Foster has produced a much acclaimed two part biography of William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...

 which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize

James Tait Black Memorial Prize

Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

, and also collaborated with Fintan Cullen

Fintan Cullen

Fintan Cullen in Dublin, is an Irish academic, educator and writer. Cullen is presently a professor at Nottingham University...

 on a National Portrait Gallery exhibition, 'Conquering England: the Irish in Victorian London'.

In 2000 Foster was a judge in the Man Booker Prize

Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

.

Works

• Charles Stewart Parnell: The Man and His Family (Sussex: Harvester Wheatsheaf 1976; NJ: Humanities Press 1979)
• ‘To The Northern Counties Station: Lord Randolph Churchill and the Prelude to the Orange Card’, in F. S. L. Lyons & R. A. J. Hawkins, ed., Ireland Under the Union: Varieties of Tension: Essays in Honour of T. W. Moody (Oxford Clarendon Press 1980)
• Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life (Oxford: OUP 1981)
• Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (London: Allen Lane; NY Viking/Penguin 1988) [with introductory essay on ‘Varieties of Irishness’]
• ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Ireland (OUP 1989; [rev. edn. as] The Oxford History of Ireland, OUP 1992)
• W. B. Yeats, A Life, Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 (OUP March 1997)
• The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press 2001)
• W. B. Yeats - A Life, II: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939 (Oxford: OUP 2003)
• Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970 (Oxford: OUP 2008)

Essay collections

• Paddy and Mr Punch: Connections in Irish History and English History (London: Allen Lane/Penguin 1993; rep. 1995)
• The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press 2001)

Miscellaneous

• Political Novels and Nineteenth-Century History (Winchester: King Alfred’s College 1982)
• ed., Hubert Butler, The Sub-Prefect Should Have Held His Tongue (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1990; rep. London: Penguin 1992), and Do., in French trans. as L’Envahisseur est venu en pantoufles (1995)
• The Story of Ireland: an Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 1 Dec. 1994 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995)

Additional reading

• Interpreting Irish History: The Debate on Historical Revisionism, Ciaran Brady (ed.), Irish Academic Press 1994.