This thesis seeks to examine how the Ascendancy fashioned their world in eighteenth-century Ireland, through a case study of Frederick Hervey, bishop of Derry and fourth earl of Bristol (1730-1803). It is primarily concerned with reconstructing and re-evaluating Hervey’s material world, in order to explore his complex relationship with it. He built, successively, two great houses in county Londonderry, Downhill and Ballyscullion, and one on his inherited lands in Suffolk, Ickworth House, placing them within a landscape setting and filling them with rare artworks. The changing intentions and career trajectory of this intriguing and multi-faceted figure are investigated by recovering the different functions of his three houses and by analysing his stylistic choices. Hervey’s campaign of consumption in Ireland will be placed within the wider British and European contexts, through reviewing the migration of objects, ideas and skilled practitioners to the houses and through assessing Hervey’s sense of national identity. Contemporary visitor responses are collated and analysed in order to consider the inter-related issues of how meaning is expressed and received though display. The purpose of the present chapter is to locate this study within existing literature, establish the merits of the methodology, survey the sources consulted and outline the content of subsequent chapters
