Goddard Henry Orpen

{{short description|Irish historian}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Goddard Henry Orpen (8 May 1852 – 15 May 1932) was an Irish historian. He attended The Abbey School, Tipperary and graduated from Trinity College Dublin.{{cite web|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/orpen-goddard-henry-a7127|title=Orpen, Goddard Henry|work=Dictionary of Irish Biography|last=Bull|first=Philip|access-date=29 March 2024}}

Orpen was the son of Dr. John Herbert Orpen{{cite Men-at-the-Bar|name=Orpen, Goddard Henry|page=346|date=2011-09-14}} (1805–1888) and Ellen Susanna Gertude Richards (?–1855)[http://www.ashefamily.info/ashefamily/1768.htm Ashe Family - Dr. John Herbert ORPEN MD] and a second cousin of artist Sir William Orpen.{{cite news |title=Obituary: Dr. Goddard Orpen |work=The Times |issue=46136 |date=18 May 1832 |pages=12 |language=en}} He married his first cousin once removed, Adela Elizabeth Richards, on 18 August 1880.{{cite book |last1=Bull|first1=Philip |editor1-last=McGuire |editor1-first=James |editor2-last=Quinn |editor2-first=James |title=Dictionary of Irish Biography |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |chapter=Orpen, Adela Elizabeth (née Richards) }}

Orpen's main work was Ireland under the Normans, a four-volume work of a total of c. 1500 pages, first published by Clarendon Press 1911–20, and then reissued in 1968. Ireland under the Normans generated political controversy when it was published, as Orpen "affronted many fellow Irishmen with his contrast between Ireland’s ‘progress, vigour and comparative order’ under Anglo-Norman rule, and ‘retrogression, stagnation, and comparative anarchy’ under ‘the recrudescence of Celtic tribalism’ in the two centuries after 1333".{{citation |last=Matthews |first=Elisabeth |title=Review: "Ireland under the Normans"|url=http://www.reading.ac.uk/AcaDepts/ln/Medieval/reviews/DuffyIreland.htm |access-date=2010-03-19|publisher=University of Reading }}Seán Duffy, Historical revisit: Goddard Henry Orpen, "Ireland under the Normans, 1169-1333" (1911-20), Irish Historical Studies Vol. 32, No. 126 (Nov., 2000), pp. 246-259. {{JSTOR|30006999}}See also {{Cite web |author=Donnchadh Ó Corráin |title=Nationality and Kingship in Pre-Norman Ireland |publisher=CELT |url=http://www.ucc.ie/celt/nation_kingship.html}} A new one-volume edition was published by Four Courts Press in 2005.[http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=588 Four Courts press] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717190720/http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=588 |date=17 July 2011 }} He also edited and translated The Song of Dermot and the Earl in 1892.

Orpen died a widower at Monksgrange House, Grange Demesne, County Wexford, on 15 May 1932, aged 80.{{cite news|title=Death: Goddard Henry Orpen|date=19 May 1932|work=The Times|page=1|location=London}}