Talk:R. B. McDowell

Importance rating
Importance low? If the criteria on the scale for high importance is/are: "Must have had a large impact in their main discipline, across a couple of generations. Had some impact outside their country of origin.", then he qualifies for high. I'll agree that the article page is a bit slim.Red Hurley (talk) 12:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that he qualifies for high-importance, because his significance is largely as a historians' historian -- he hasn't achieved a wider significance outside that discipline (except as an apparently permanent fixture within TCD!), which tends to be required for high importance. So I have uprated him to mid-importance.
 * However, the article still needs a lot of work. It squeezes in as start-class because of the bibliography, but the text is brief and doesn't take a very encyclopedic tone, and says very little about his academic work. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:00, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It does need a lot of work. Few Irish historians have been mentioned in Harpers; I must find that reference some time.Red Hurley (talk) 22:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Death Notice
Dear Colleague

Members of the College community will be saddened to learn of the death on Monday, 29 August 2011, of

Robert Brendan McDowell, M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D., LLD. (h.c.), M.R.I.A., F.T.C.D. (1951)

Junior Dean 1956-1969

Reader in History 1962-1967

Associate Professor of Modern History, 1967-1980

Professor of Oratory 1980-1981

Author of works including:

British Conservatism, 1832-1914 (1959)

The Irish Administration, 1801-1914 (1964)

The Irish Convention, 1917-1918 (1970)

Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution, 1760-1801 (1979)

Mahaffy (1971) (with W.B. Stanford)

Trinity College, Dublin 1592-1952 (1982) (with D.A. Webb)

McDowell on McDowell (2008)

The funeral will take place at 2.30 p.m. on Monday 5th September 2011 at Mount Jerome Crematorium. A memorial service will be held in the College Chapel on Thursday 20th October 2011 at 5.15 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Anne FitzGerald

Secretary to the College

Notjim (talk) 21:36, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. Can anyone source an exact birth date, perhaps from obits, and a copyright-free image? RashersTierney (talk) 22:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion
On a scale of importance, McDowell is nowhere. I'm not sure that being a 'character' at Trinity are grounds for a Wiki entry. If we include him, we may as well include every academic in the world, solely on the basis of their quirks. By what metric is this person noteworthy? Hanoi Road (talk) 14:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)