Theodore William Moody (26 November 1907 – 11 February 1984) was a historian from Belfast, Ireland.
Background
Early life Moody was born in Belfast, to a poor family who made their living from dressmaking and iron turning and was educated from 1920 to 1926 at the Belfast Academical Institution.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. Moody's parents both belonged to the Plymouth Brethren.Martin, F.X "Theodore William Moody" pages 5–7 from Hermathena, No. 136, Summer 1984 page 5. As a six-year-old in 1913, Moody saw the homes of Roman Catholics living down the street go up in flames during a riot against the Home Rule bill, which left him with a lifelong horror of the sectarian hatreds that so often characterised Irish life.Martin, F.X "Theodore William Moody" pages 5–7 from Hermathena, No. 136, Summer 1984 page 5. At the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Moody's strongest subjects were the sciences and Latin, but one of his teachers, Archie Douglas turned his attention to history.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. At the Queen's University Belfast, a professor James Eadie Todd encouraged Moody to pursue graduate studies.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. In 1930 he went to the Institute of Historical Research in London, and graduated with a PhD in 1934.Helen Mulvey, 'Theodore William Moody (1907–1984): an Appreciation', Irish Historical Studies, XXIV, November 1984, pages 121 – 130. Moody's doctoral thesis was published as the 1934 book The Londonderry Plantation, 1609–41: the City of London and the Plantation of Ulster.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. In 1922, the Irish Public Record Office in Dublin was burned down during the course of the Irish Civil War, and as historians have traditionally used government documents, much of Ireland's 17th-century history was considered lost.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. Moody used instead the records of The Honourable The Irish Society as the consortium of companies that granted the right to colonise Ulster in the Derry area together with the papers relating to the plantation of Ulster that were to found the records of the Irish Society.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. The book was generally ignored in England, but was greeted with welcome reviews in Ireland, as a trail-brazing work that opened up new avenues for studying Irish history.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232.
During his time in London, Moody met his future wife Margaret Robertson and often spoke on the subject of Irish history with R. Dudley Edwards, with whom he lodged.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. and with whom he worked washing dishes in one of the London hotels to fund their studying. Both Edwards and Moody agreed that the discipline of history in Ireland needed a “revolution” in terms of methodology, goals and style.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. In 1932, Moody returned to Queen's University to work as a teacher's assistant to Todd, and in 1935 Moody started to deliver lectures himself.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 232. In the 1930s he
Feeling historians in Ireland worked too much in isolation, Moody founded in February 1936 the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies, and later that same year, Edwards founded the Irish Historical Society.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233. A man with an intense work ethic and much energy, Moody wanted to bring up the standard of history in Ireland, which he felt needed improvements.Martin, F.X "Theodore William Moody" pages 5–7 from Hermathena, No. 136, Summer 1984 page 6. Moody was sympathetic towards Irish nationalism, but he detested violence.Martin, F.X "Theodore William Moody" pages 5–7 from Hermathena, No. 136, Summer 1984 page 6. In his obituary, Father F.X Martin noted that Moody was raised in the Plymouth Brethren, but he found his true faith as an adult when he became a Quaker.Martin, F.X "Theodore William Moody" pages 5–7 from Hermathena, No. 136, Summer 1984 page 5. Moody felt Ireland was in need of major social reforms, hence his personal heroes were James Connolly, James Larkin, and above all Michael Davitt, who preached a mixture of Irish nationalism, social reformism and non-violence.Martin, F.X "Theodore William Moody" pages 5–7 from Hermathena, No. 136, Summer 1984 page 6. Despite the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, Edwards and Moody worked together and in 1938 founded the Irish Committee of Historical Studies to ensure that Ireland was a member of the Comité International des Sciences Historiques.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233. Later in 1938, Moody and Edwards founded the journal Irish Historical Studies, to promote the study of Irish history in a properly peer-reviewed journal.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233 In June 1939, Moody accepted an offer to teach at Trinity College, the most prestigious university in Ireland.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233
He held the position of Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin from 1940 to 1977, when he became professor emeritus.Dictionary of Ulster Biography In 1940, Moody defined his goals to: “teach history in various fields, including the history of Ireland to undergraduates; to encourage and direct research on Irish history, especially by young history graduates; to set new standards of objectivity and technical excellence in the conduct of the research and in the presentation of its results; to promote and assist the publication of articles and books based on such work, and thus to bring a new historiography to bear on the teaching of Irish history; to encourage co-operation among historians and communications between the historians and the concerned public; and to contribute directly to the new historiography”.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233 In 1943, Moody was promoted to the head of the history department.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233 Moody was a popular teacher with enrolments in the history department rising steadily and Trinity acquiring a worldwide reputation as a centre of research on medieval and modern Irish history.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 233 Together with Edwards who now at University College in Dublin and David Quinn at Liverpool University, Moody persuaded the publisher Faber and Faber to launch a series called “Studies in Irish History” to allow his graduate students a chance to be published.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 234 With Robert Dudley Edwards, he founded Irish Historical Studies and The Irish Committee of Historical Sciences and began publication of A New History of Ireland.Helen Mulvey, 'Theodore William Moody (1907–1984): an Appreciation', Irish Historical Studies, XXIV, November 1984, pages 121 – 130. Moody also sought to give history a higher profile in Ireland.
1950s-1970s In 1953, Moody created the Thomas Davis Lectures on Irish radio, a series of half-hour lectures on various topics in Irish history.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 234 In 1954 he gave a 12-part radio lecture series on Northern Ireland Radio which proved to be so popular that Moody published them as the book Ulster Since 1800: a Political and Economic Survey.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 234 In 1957, Moody gave a second series of lectures on Northern Ireland Radio, which again published as Ulster Since 1800, Second Series: a Social Survey.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 234 In 1967, Moody hosted the 21-part television series The Course of Irish History that was aired on the Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE), where he aimed "to present a survey of Irish history that would be both popular and authoritative, concise but comprehensive, highly selective while at the same time balanced and fair-minded, critical, but constructive and sympathetic".Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 234 Moody served on the Irish Manuscripts Commission (1943–1984), the Irish Broadcasting Council (1953–1960), the advisory committee for cultural relations to the Irish government (1949–1963), the commission on higher education (1960–1962) and the Irish Broadcasting Authority (1960–1972).Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 234
In 1962, Moody in a presidential speech before the Irish Historical Society called for a “New History of Ireland” that would take the form of a 12–14 volume work that would cover all aspects of the political, economic, cultural, social, legal, religious and military history of Ireland that would require the collaboration of dozens of scholars with financial support from the Irish state.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 235 In October 1963, Moody secured the necessary funding for “Moody’s history” as the project was popularly dubbed.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 235 However, Moody was forced to modify his plans for The New History of Ireland with the first stage to consist of two volumes giving a general overview of Irish history with the remaining ten volumes to consist of “primary narrative” and “complementary structure” with specialised chapters on subjects such as the history of the law, music, literature and art in Ireland.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 236
In 1972, the Irish government fired the entire council of the Irish Broadcasting Authority for supposedly violating a directive to not air “any matter that could be calculated to promote the aims or activities of any organisation which engages in, promote, encourages or advocates the attaining of any particular objective by violent means.”Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 pages 234–235 Moody was broadly supportive of the directive, but felt it had been applied in a heavy-handed manner that was constricting the supply of information.Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 235 At the time of his firing, Moody told the Irish Times on 27 November 1972:“Much of our problems springs from a refusal to face unpalatable facts, an addiction to make believe, a tendency to prefer myths to the truth. But a new realism, a new questioning of case-hardened assumptions has emerged, and this has been greatly, perhaps decisively, encouraged and stimulated by the development of broadcasting. If the measure of freedom that the RTE has had is now to be drastically reduced, one of the first casualties will be the truth, and the process of awakening the public mind to the realities of the Irish predicament may be disastrously halted. We need more, not less, communication in Ireland.”Hughes-Warrrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers on History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 235