Seán O’ Reilly
PhD Student
Biography
Seán graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2008 with a BA (Hons) degree in History and English Literature. He began work on his Ph.D. research in the same year under the supervision of Patrick Geoghegan. When not sifting through archive papers Seán can be found playing water polo with the University Swimming Club, DUSC.
Research
‘The operation of the Irish Act of Union, 1801-1820’.
Seán’s research addresses what A.P.W. Malcomson has termed ‘the missing years’ of nineteenth-century Irish history. His thesis analyses the political milieu of the early nineteenth century, examining the developments in the Anglo-Irish relationship between the Union and the rise of mass agitation in favour of Catholic Emancipation under the leadership of Daniel O’ Connell. Within this study of high politics, the thesis looks to develop strands on the cultural, social and economic history of the period. A central aspect of the thesis concerns itself with Ireland’s new found place in the British Empire.
Key areas so far examined have focused on the immediate post-union fallout, with particular attention paid to the Dublin Castle administration of Lord Hardwicke, the first lord lieutenant following the Union; the role of Irish MPs in the imperial parliament and initial agitation for religious tolerance against the backdrop of failed attempts for Catholic Emancipation. Initial findings make a strong case in favour of the importance of this period in shaping the following two centuries of Irish, British and indeed imperial history.
Teaching:
Seán is a part-time research assistant (2012/13) in the History Department where he has lectured on freshmen courses in American history: A survey (HI1208) and Themes in modern American history (HI2106). He is the history course coordinator on the Trinity Access Programme’s (TAP) Foundation Year for Higher Education certificate course, where he has taught since 2008. During his time at Trinity, both in the History Department and with TAP, Seán has developed modules and delivered lectures and classes both on his own research as well as on a wide variety of topics ranging from Irish and British history in the later early modern period, twentieth-century Ireland, the course of American history and various events in European history.
Committed to innovative teaching methods and the widening of educational access at third level he has directed and contributed to a number of successful extracurricular projects.
Funding:
Seán was an IRCHSS Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholar (2009-2011) and has received funding from the Grace Lawless Lee fund (2009) and a Graduate Studies/Trinity Trust travel grant (2010).
Conferences and papers:
- Rethinking Fort Dearborn 200 years on: History and memory in Chicago, speaking tour in the United States as part of the bicentennial commemorations of the Fort Dearborn conflict and the War of 1812, (August, 2012). The full lecture can be viewed in the video embedded in this page.
- ‘Completely undone’: The making of the United Kingdom from Bantry Bay to Westminster, 1796-1806, the Jeremiah Sheehan Memorial Lecture, presented to the Moate Historical Society, (September, 2010).
- Lord Clare, the politics of fear and Ireland’s imperial destiny, ‘Violence and Empire’ international doctoral conference and workshop, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, (May, 2010).
- An act of divergence?: Ireland and the immediate consequences of the Act of Union, 1801-1806, ‘Crisis and Continuity’ 4th annual TCD-UCD postgraduate history conference, Dublin, (May, 2009).