Robert Fitzroy 'Roy' Foster (born 16 January 1949), publishing as R. F. Foster, is an Irish historian and academic. He was the Carroll Professor of Irish History from 1991 until 2016 at

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main gate to the Bodleian Library. The col ...

Early life

Foster was born on 16 January 1949 in

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

, to two teachers: Betty Foster (née Fitzroy), a primary teacher, and 'Fef' (Ernest) Foster, a teacher of

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

. His father, Fef, was a native of Drung, a tiny hamlet and parish located between

Cavan Town Cavan ( ; ) is the county town of County Cavan in Ireland. The town lies in Ulster, near the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. The town is bypassed by the main N3 road that links Dublin (to the south) with Enniskillen, Ballys ...

and

Cootehill Cootehill (; ) is a market town and townland in County Cavan, Ireland. Cootehill was formerly part of the neighbouring townland of Munnilly. Both townlands lie within the barony of Tullygarvey. The English language name of the town is a port ...

County Cavan County Cavan ( ; gle, Contae an Chabháin) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of the Border Region. It is named after the town of Cavan and is based on the historic Gaelic territory of East Breffny (''Bréifn ...

. Roy attended

Newtown School Newtown School may refer to: * Newtown School, Waterford in Ireland * Newtown School in New_Zealand: see Newtown, New Zealand#Education {{disambig ...

in Waterford, a multi-denominational school that was founded as a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

school in the late 18th century. He won a scholarship to attend St. Andrew's School in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...

for a year before reading history at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. He was awarded an M.A. and PhD by Trinity College, where he was taught by

T. W. Moody Theodore William Moody (26 November 1907 – 11 February 1984) was a historian from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Background Early life Moody was born in Belfast, to a poor family who made their living from dressmaking and iron turning and wa ...

and F. S. L. Lyons, and was elected a scholar in History and Political Science in 1969.

Academic career

Prior to his appointment to the Carroll professorship, he was Professor of Modern British History at

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

, and held visiting fellowships at

St Antony's College, Oxford St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economi ...

, the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, Princeton, and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. Based in London as well as at Hertford College in Oxford, Foster visits Ireland frequently. His work is generally published under the name R. F. Foster. He has written early biographies of

Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of t ...

and

Lord Randolph Churchill Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill (13 February 1849 – 24 January 1895) was a British statesman. Churchill was a Tory radical and coined the term ' Tory democracy'. He inspired a generation of party managers, created the National Union ...

, edited ''The Oxford History of Ireland'' (1989), and written ''Modern Ireland: 1600–1972'' (1988) and several books of essays. He collaborated with

Fintan Cullen Fintan Cullen (born 3 January 1954) in Dublin, is an Irish academic, educator and writer. Cullen is a professor at the University of Nottingham. National Portrait Gallery Exhibit He and Roy Foster co-created the exhibit ''Conquering England: I ...

on a National Portrait Gallery exhibition, ''Conquering England: the Irish in Victorian London''. Foster produced a much-acclaimed two-part biography of

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

, which was awarded the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

Seamus Deane Seamus Francis Deane (9 February 194012 May 2021) was an Irish poet, novelist, critic, and intellectual historian. He was noted for his debut novel, ''Reading in the Dark'', which won several literary awards and was nominated for the Booker Pri ...

wrote a review of the biography in which he quoted the last line of Yeats' poem ''The Municipal Gallery Revisited'': "My glory was that I had such friends", and stated that Yeats was also lucky to have Foster as his biographer. In 2000, Foster was a

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...

judge.

Personal life

He has been married to the novelist and critic Aisling Foster (née O'Conor Donelan) since 1972; the couple have two children."Interpreter of myths"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'', 12 September 2003.

Honours

In 1989, he was elected

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # ...

(FBA) , and in 2010 he was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy (Hon. MRIA). He is also an elected

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elec ...

(FRSL), and a

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

(FRHistS). He gave the 2006 Warton Lecture on English Poetry. In 2015, he was awarded the

British Academy Medal The British Academy Medal is awarded annually by the British Academy to up to three individuals or groups. It is awarded for "outstanding achievement that has transformed understanding of a particular subject or field of study in ... any branch of ...

for his book ''Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890–1923''. In 2017, he was made an honorary fellow of

. In 2021 Foster was awarded an Irish Presidential Distinguished Service Award in Arts, Culture & Sport.

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) ith introductory essay on 'Varieties of Irishness'* ed., ''The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Ireland'' (OUP 1989; ev. 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) * ''Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890–1923'' (NY: W. W. Norton & Company; 2015) * ''On Seamus Heaney'' (Princeton University Press 2020) 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 December 1994'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995)

Notes and references

External links

Foster contributions and archive
at ''

The London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review ...

''

at '' Conversations with Tyler'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, R. F. 1949 births Living people Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Fellows of the Royal Historical Society 20th-century Irish historians 21st-century Irish historians Honorary Fellows of Trinity College Dublin James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Members of the Royal Irish Academy People educated at Newtown School, Waterford People from Waterford (city) Recipients of the British Academy Medal Revisionism (Ireland) Scholars of Trinity College Dublin W. B. Yeats scholars