Radio documentary about Tipperary writer Dorothea Herbert is available to listen to on podcast

A radio documentary on the fascinating life of Tipperary writer, poet and diarist Dorothea Herbert, who lived between 1760 and 1829, has been produced for RTE’s Lyric FM. 

Dorothea The Doozy, was broadcast on the station last Sunday evening, (February 19) but the documentary can still be listened to as a podcast through the Lyric Feature. 

The programme, presented and produced by former RTE newscaster Angie Mezzetti, examines the life and writings of the long overlooked Tipperary writer, who  is often compared with Jane Austen and wrote around the same time as the great English novelist.  

Dorothea lived at Knockgraffon, New Inn as well as Carrick-on-Suir where her father was a Church of Ireland rector in what is now Carrick-on-Suir Heritage Centre off the town’s Main Street. 

 Scandalous affairs, romantic liaisons, fashion reports, crazy practical jokes and shocking stories of domestic violence against women in the upper classes are all there in her writings. 

Her descriptions of an imaginary husband, a gender-fluid visitor, camp cousins and groping relatives paint a colourful and unique picture of life in county Tipperary in the late 1700s. 

The documentary includes an interview with local Dorothea Herbert enthusiast Johnny Fitzpatrick  in the grounds of Carrick Heritage Centre where Dorothea and her family are buried. 

Angie Mezzetti says Dorothea’s memoir Retrospections of an Outcast written from 1780 to 1806 reveals a unique insight into life for the landholding Herbert family and their class.  The book, which was only first published in 1929, sheds light on the role of women and domestic life in rural Ireland in the late 1700s and early 1800s, for the Anglo Irish. 

“It was a time of great upheaval worldwide - the French Revolution, American War of Independence, the agrarian uprisings in Ireland and 1798 rebellion in Ireland,”  Angie points out.   

“While these are referenced in her book and later diary extracts, her poetry and memoir are focused mostly on her domestic world and the confined role of women as either wives or spinsters.

“She also writes about her romantic attachment to John Roe of Rockwell (where Rockwell College is now located) who she believed she was married to spiritually even though he never proposed to her. 

“Experts believe this relationship may have been a product of her vivid imagination or a literary device.” In the documentary, Dorothea’s words are brought to life by Clonmel actor Aideen Wylde reading several anecdotes that Herbert writes about so beautifully. 

“Some are comical, others distressing and sad. What is striking is how violence, specifically domestic violence against women, was commonplace at all levels of society in the late 1700s/early 1800s,” says Angie. 

 Background information, context and explanation of the works of Herbert are outlined in the documentary by Dr Jane Maxwell, Manuscripts Curator of  Trinity College’s Library and Archives Research Collections where the original illustrated manuscript, Retrospections of an Outcast,  is kept. The manuscript is written in Dorothea’s handwriting and illustrated  with her own water-colour drawings. 

Also featured is Dr Mary Breen of the  School of English, University College Cork. Dr Breen did her Oxford doctoral thesis on Herbert and talks about her gifted literary style and how it is obvious that she was widely read.

Also featured is poet Anne Tannam who teaches journaling for creativity and mental health. This is to show how Herbert used journaling and diary keeping as a wellspring for creative writing and poetry and as a way of keeping a handle on her mental health which suffered serious decline in her later years. 

Angie says she received great assistance from Tipperary County Council which gave her permission to record some of the documentary in Carrick-on-Suir Town Hall.

 She paid tribute to Liz McGrath from the council and  Patsy Fitzgerald of Carrick-on-Suir Heritage Centre for their assistance.

 She also thanked the Board of Trinity College for access to the original Retrospections of an Outcast manuscript