Goddard Henry Orpen

John Herbert Orpen (1805–1888) and Ellen Susanna Gertude Richards (?–1855) and a second cousin of artist Sir William Orpen. He married his first cousin once removed, Adela Elizabeth Richards, on 18 August 1880. 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". A new one-volume edition was published by Four Courts Press in 2005. 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.

Goddard Henry Orpen studied at Trinity College, Dublin and The Abbey School. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is Ireland in the Middle Ages. Positions recorded include president. Distinctions recorded are Doctor of Letters and Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.

Goddard Henry Orpen is recorded with the occupation medieval historian. Recorded as having received Doctor of Letters and Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. Orpen worked in Ireland in the Middle Ages.