Meghan Frazier
PhD Student

Biography

Originally from Boston, I completed my BA in History at Emmanuel College in 2007. In 2012 I graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an MPhil in Early Modern History. I started my PhD in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer. Currently I help to co-organise the monthly postgraduate seminars for the Centre for Early Modern History.

Research

‘For feare they shold fall from it’: Apostasy, Heresy and Religious Violence in Seventeenth-Century Ireland

My thesis analyses the witness statements taken after the 1641 Irish rebellion to identify contemporary beliefs surrounding apostasy, heresy and conversion. It will investigate how ideas of orthodoxy and orthopraxy relate to apostasy and ethnicity in mid-seventeenth century Ireland. Additionally, I will study the impact of trauma and the influence it may have had on the memories recounted by settlers in the depositions. Lastly, the thesis will study how closely the frequency of conversion and apostasy recounted was related to plantation patterns in Ireland.

My other research interests include social and intellectual history and marine archaeology.