Quiet Luxury: Viscountess Doneraile’s Shopping as Elite Female Identity-Formation in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland

By Maeve O’Riordan
Published in Cultural and Social History, 2025.
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Abstract

Luxury items bought in nineteenth-century London’s fashionable West End, and the time spent browsing there, were examples of conspicuous consumption. This article uses a case-study of 200 bills to explore the shopping preferences of Mary Anne St Leger, Viscountess Doneraile, a member of the Irish peerage who lived during the years of the class’ most dramatic decline. Building on consumption studies, I argue that Doneraile’s shopping practices, and her preference for London over Irish suppliers, were an exercise in ‘quiet luxury’ as she used her cultural capital to make discerning choices. She curated her membership of Britain’s social elite through London-bought goods.