Project title: Impacting Parnell’s Speeches
Funder: Cambridge Humanities Research Grant
PI: Dr Eugenio Biagini: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Dates: April 2021–September 2021


Charles Stewart Parnell (1837-91) was the dominant Irish political figure of the late-nineteenth century. With his campaigns for land reform and Home Rule, he changed Ireland’s relationship with Britain and reshaped north-south relations on the island. Despite his remarkable stature and influence, his legacy continues to be contested among scholars and his political stance is widely described as an ‘enigma’. His speeches were the main instrument through which he mobilised and polarised opinion throughout the Anglo-world, yet, they have never been edited or even collected, and their impact – always presumed to be considerable – has not been studied in any systematic way.

The present project addresses these gaps in a methodologically innovative way by:

  • 1) creating a preliminary digitized edition of Parnell’s speeches, based on currently available printed records;
  • 2) collecting and digitising records of reactions triggered by Parnell’s speeches among his audiences both at home andabroad;
  • 3) testing the viability of digital methods for collating, cross-referencing and editing the collected source materials;
  • 4) preparing a major funding application for the creation of a complete Parnell corpus, including the critical edition of all his speeches and a systematic analysis of their political impact.

Sentiment Analysis

The GitHub repository is for the sentiment analysis and topic modelling on the speeches of Charles Stewart Parnell. The dataset currently comprises 349 TEI P5 XML records relating to reports of Parnell’s speeches transcribed from various sources. For each report, metadata is recorded on its publisher and date and place of publication. A separate authority file is kept for the records of the speeches themselves.

https://github.com/NyeJones/parnell-sentiment-analysis-and-topic-modelling


This project is based in the Faculty of History, in collaboration with CDH

 

Huw Jones

Huw Jones

Library Digital Humanities Coordinator

Cambridge Digital Humanities

Tel: +44 1223 766886
Email enquiries@crassh.cam.ac.uk