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Department of History

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer

Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History

she/her

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, MRIA, FBA, FTCD, FRHistS, is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin.

Professor Ohlmeyer served as the founding Vice-President for Global Relations (2011-14). Between 2015 and 2020 she was Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and has been a pioneer in advocating for Trinity's Arts and Humanities both nationally and internationally.  Between 2015 and 2021, she chaired of the Irish Research Council, a body that funds frontier research across all disciplines.  She was a driving force behind the development of the Trinity Long Room Hub and the 1641 Depositions Project.

In 2023 she received the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities, which is awarded to individuals who have made a demonstrable and internationally recognised outstanding scholarly contribution in their fields, and was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy.  In 2023 she received an Advanced ERC for VOICES: Life and Death, War and Peace, c.1550-c.1700. Voices of Women in Early Modern Ireland.

Professor Ohlmeyer is the author or editor of numerous articles and 14 books, including being the editor of Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Ireland, published in 2018, and launched by the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins in Dublin, and by President Elect Joe Biden in the United States.  Her most recent book is 'Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World' (Oxford, 2023) which she gave as the 2021 Ford Lectures in Oxford.  She is currently working with Briona Ni Dhiarmada on a booked called From that Small Island. The story of the Irish which is based on a 4-part documentary and a feature which won the Best International Documentary award at the 2025 Newport Beach Film Festival.

Professor Ohlmeyer has led Trinity's bid as part of a consortium of partners for the successful award of €1.5 million for the project ‘Shape-ID’ (2018-21), ‘Shaping Interdisciplinary Practices in Europe’, funded by European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.  She was also the PI for the Marie Curie Sklodowska Actions Co-fund, Human+ (€2.8M), which is in partnership with the Adapt Centre (2020-25).  Between 2017 and 2020 she led the Mellon Foundation funded Global Humanities Institute on the ‘Crises of Democracy’, involving a global and interdisciplinary consortium of academics from Trinity, University of Zagreb, Central European University in Budapest, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, São Paulo University, and Columbia University in New York.  

Professor Ohlmeyer has served as a Trustee of the National Library of Scotland and the Caledonian Research Foundation, was a member of the Council of the Royal Historical Society,  President of the Irish Historical Society,  member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and was a non-executive director of the Sunday Business Post.  She is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and of a number of editorial and international advisory boards and a non-executive director of Key Capital.  She served on the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institute’s international advisory board from 2017 to 2021.

Select Publications
Books

  • Making Empire: Ireland Imperialism and the early modern world (Oxford, 2023)
  • Making Ireland English: The Irish Aristocracy in the Seventeenth Century (Yale University Press, 2012)
  • Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: the Political Career of Randal MacDonnell First Marquis of Antrim (1609-83) (Cambridge University Press, 1993; paperback reprint in Four Courts Press’s ‘Classics in Irish History’ Series, Dublin, 2001)

Edited Collections

  • The Cambridge History of Ireland. Vol. 2. Early Modern Ireland, 1550-1730 (Cambridge University Press, 2018; paperback, 2020)
  • 1641: Contexts and Reactions editor with Micheál Ó Siochrú (Manchester University Press, 2013; paperback 2014)
  • Irish and Scottish Mercantile Networks in Europe and Overseas in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries editor with David Dickson and Jan Parmentier (Ghent University Press, 2007)
  • Intelligence, Statecraft and International Power editor with Robert Armstrong and Eunan O’Halpin (Irish Academic Press: Dublin, 2006)
  • British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland editor with Ciaran Brady (Cambridge University Press, 2004; paperback 2010)
  • The Stuart Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century: Awkward Neighbours editor with Allan Macinnes (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2002)
  • Kingdom or Colony?: Political Thought in Seventeenth-century Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 2000; paperback 2010)
  • The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1638-1660 (Oxford University Press, 1998; reprinted as part of the Oxford Illustrated History series, 2002)
  • Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1641-1660 (Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback, 2002)

Edited Texts

  • A Short View of the State and Condition of the Kingdom of Ireland … (Oxford University Press, 2020)
  • The Irish Statute Staple Books, 1596-1687 (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1998) with Éamonn Ó Ciardha
  • The 1641 Depositions. Between 2014 and 2020 the Irish Manuscripts Commission published the 1641 Depositions in 12 volumes. Aidan Clarke is the principal editor and I am one of the co-editors, along with Tom Bartlett, John Morrill and Micheál Ó Siochrú.

Articles

I have published articles in peer-reviewed journals (including very highly regarded Past & Present, American Historical Review, Law and History Review, and The Historical Journal), and chapters in edited volumes, anthologies and conference proceedings. Others have appeared in more popular outlets (History Ireland and History Today). See the full list here.

Teaching and Supervision

I am a passionate teacher of undergraduate history students and offers courses on the War and Society in early modern Ireland and Europe, the Nobility in the early modern period and the Civil Wars of the 1640s.

I have supervised c.20 MPhil theses, 12 PhD students, and mentored 22 postdoctoral fellows.. Most of my doctoral students hold external awards, including IRCHSS/IRC funding, and many have gone on to become teachers or hold academic positions in universities in Ireland, the UK and Japan.

I have also served as an external examiner for PhD theses in the English and History Faculties at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, New South Wales, Galway, UCD and Maynooth.

Professor Ohlmeyer on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Department of History
Trinity College
Dublin 2.

Telephone: +353 1 896 2042
Email: ohlmeyej@tcd.ie
Twitter: https://twitter.com/janeohlmeyer
https://www.janeohlmeyer.ie/