Professor Seán Duffy

Associate Professor of Medieval History

Research Interests

Professor Duffy specializes in the history of medieval Ireland and, in particular, three aspects: first, the political history of Ireland in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries; second, Irish relations with England, Scotland, and Wales in the same period; and third, the history and archaeology of medieval Dublin.

Select Publications
Books

• Medieval Dublin: Proceedings of the Friends of medieval Dublin Symposium (Editor. Dublin: Four Courts, 1999-). [eleven vols have appeared to date]
• The World of the Galloglass: Kings, warlords and warriors in Ireland and Scotland, 1200-1600 (Editor. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 219.
• Medieval Ireland: An encyclopedia (Editor. New York & London: Routledge, 2005), pp. xxxii + 546.
• Robert the Bruce’s Irish Wars: The invasions of Ireland, 1306-1329 (Editor. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2002), pp. 221.
• The Concise History of Ireland (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2000), pp. 256.
• Ireland in the Middle Ages (Basingstoke & Dublin: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 216.
• Atlas of Irish history (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan), 2000), pp 160. [now in its 4th edn]

Articles

• ‘The hermits of St Augustine in medieval Dublin: their history and archaeology’, in John Bradley, Alan Fletcher, Anngret Simms, eds, Dublin in the Medieval World: Studies in honour of Howard B. Clarke (Dublin: Four Courts, 2009), pp. 202-48. [with Linzi Simpson]
• ‘Ireland, c.1000-c.1100’, in Pauline Stafford (ed.), A companion to the early Middle Ages. Britain and Ireland c.500-c.1100 (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 285-302.
• ‘Henry II and England's insular neighbours’, in Christopher Harper-Bill and Nicholas Vincent, eds, Henry II: New interpretations (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), pp. 129–53.
• ‘Town and crown: the kings of England and their city of Dublin’, in Michael Prestwich, Richard Britnell and Robin Frame, eds, Thirteenth Century England X. Proceedings of the Durham Conference 2003 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 95–117.
• ‘The lords of Galloway, earls of Carrick, and the Bissets of the Glens: Scottish settlement in thirteenth-century Ulster’ in David Edwards, ed., Regions and Rulers in Ireland, 1100-1650 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2004), pp. 37-50.
• ‘The British perspective’, in S.H. Rigby (ed.), A companion to Britain in the later middle ages (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), 165-83.
• ‘Historical revisit: Goddard Henry Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, 1169-1333 (1911-20)’, Irish Historical Studies, 37 (2000), 246-59.
• ‘John and the origins of England’s Irish problem’, in S.D. Church (ed.), King John: new interpretations (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999), 221-45.
• ‘King John's expedition to Ireland, AD 1210: the evidence reconsidered’, Irish Historical Studies, 40 (1996), 1-24.
• ‘The first Ulster plantation: John de Courcy and the men of Cumbria’, in R. Frame, K. Simms, T Barry (eds), Colony and frontier in medieval Ireland: essays presented to J.F. Lydon (London: Hambledon Press, 1995), 1-27.
• ‘Irishmen and Islesmen in the kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052-1171’, Ériu, 43 (1992), 93-133.
• ‘The Bruce brothers and the Irish Sea world, 1306-29’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 21 (1991), 55-86.

Teaching and Supervision

Professor Duffy currently teaches Sophister courses on ‘The English in Medieval Ireland’ and on ‘Medieval Dublin’ and teaches and coordinates the following Freshman courses:

• ‘Ireland, 1000-1250: Brian Boru to the English Invasion’.
• ‘Ireland, 1250-1500: Gaelic Revival and English Pale’.
• ‘Doing History’.

At postgraduate level he teaches modules on the MPhil in Medieval History and supervises graduate students on all aspects of medieval Irish history.

Dr. Duffy on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Room 3146
Department of History
Trinity College
Dublin 2.

Telephone: +353 1 896 1801
Fax: +353 1 896 3995
Email: sduffy@tcd.ie