Professor Patrick Geoghegan
Professor, History
Biography
Professor Patrick Geoghegan is a leading scholar of eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland, with a particular expertise on the changing nature of the Anglo-Irish relationship in this period. His work on the Irish Act of Union and its aftermath, the rebellion of Robert Emmet, and the political and legal career of Daniel O'Connell, culminating in five monographs, has been recognised both nationally and internationally, and has helped reshape perspectives on the changing relationship between constitutional nationalism and republicanism. These themes are also explored in his teaching, and Geoghegan uses innovative teaching and assessment methods to encourage students to become independent and critical thinkers. In recognition of this he was awarded the Provost's Teaching Award in 2009. He began working in Trinity in 1999, teaching on the Trinity Access Programme, and since 2001 in the School of Histories and Humanities.
Geoghegan's engagement in public outreach has also been a distinctive feature of his work. The presenter of the award-winning 'Talking History' on Newstalk radio, he has brought the discipline of history to a wide popular audience, and its weekly podcasts are among the most downloaded in the country. A Vice-President of the Irish Legal History Society, he has supported an interdisciplinary approach to legal and historical studies.
Between 2011 and 2014 he was the Senior Lecturer/Dean of Undergraduate Studies for Trinity College Dublin, and during that time developed new policies on admissions and the undergraduate curriculum. Among his contributions were the feasibility study in admissions, the Trinity Explore website, and the Northern Ireland Engagement Programme.
Professor Geoghegan is also a Vice-President of the College Historical Society, and is writing a new history of the society for its 250th anniversary in 2020. He was the principal investigator for a major research project which saw a new history, Trinity in War and Revolution, dealing with the critical period 1912-1923, by Dr. Tomás Irish, published by the Royal Irish Academy in the autumn of 2015.
Professor Geoghegan also researches and teaches on the History of the United States in the Civil War era and beyond. In terms of publications, his acclaimed two-volume study of Daniel O'Connell completed his examination of the tensions and conflicts which emerged following the abolition of the Irish parliament. The first volume provided a new analysis of the winning of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 while the second discussed the attempts to repeal the Union which failed so dramatically in the 1840s. A Vice-President of the College Historical Society (and a former gold medalist for oratory at the L&H), Professor Geoghegan has always been interested in the role of oratory in political debate and how oratory shaped political discourse. His current work develops from these interests and examines how Edmund Burke both succeeded and failed in using oratory to change the nature of imperial debate in the eighteenth century.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
E.Biagini, P.Geoghegan, H.Hanley, A.Jones, H.Jones, `Reconstructing historical texts from fragmentary sources: Charles S. Parnell and the Irish Crisis", Digital Humanities Quarterly, 17, (3), 2023
E.F. Biagini, P.M. Geoghegan, H. Hanley, A. Jones, and H. Jones, `From Sentiment to Style: Charles Stewart Parnell"s Rhetoric in the First Crisis of the United Kingdom", Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2022, 00, 1"9 , 'Charles Stewart Parnell's Rhetoric in the First Crisis of the United Kingdom', Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2022, p1 - 9
Patrick Geoghegan, The College Historical Society: Oratory and Debate, 1770-2020, 1st, Dublin, Lilliput Press, 2020, 1 - 500pp
'The O'Connellite Persuasion' in, editor(s)Raphael Ingelbein and Susan Galavan , Figures of Authority in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2020, pp17 - 36, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'The Challenge of Chartism: Daniel O'Connell's Ideological War', American Journal of Irish Studies, 15, 2019, p113 - 132
'The Impact of O'Connell, 1815-1850' in, editor(s)James Kelly , The Cambridge History of Ireland, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp102 - 127, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Foreword in, The life and times of Arthur Browne, Dublin, The Irish Legal History Society with Four Courts Press, 2017, ppix - xiii, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick Geoghegan, 'Daniel O'Connell: The Man Who Discovered Ireland', 2015, -
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'The Irish Experiment: Undergraduate Admissions for the 21st Century', International Perspectives on Higher Education Admission Policy: A Reader, 2014, p39 - 47
'Rising and Union, 1791-1801' in, editor(s)Alvin Jackson , The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp497 - 513, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
'Daniel O'Connell and the law' in, editor(s)Felix M. Larkin and N.M. Dawson , Lawyers, the Law and History, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2013, pp83 - 99, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Liberator: Daniel O'Connell, 1775-1847', Dublin Festival of History, Dublin Castle, 28 September, 2013
Foreword, Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dublin Burning: the Easter Rising from behind the barricades, Dublin:, Gill and Macmillan, 2013, vii - x
'Daniel O'Connell and the Magee Trials, 1813' in, editor(s)Michael Brown and Sean Patrick Donlan , The Laws and Other Legalities of Ireland, 1689-1850, Surrey, Ashgate, 2011, pp283 - 299, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Liberator: the Life and Death of Daniel O'Connell, 1830-1847, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2010, 1 - 291pp
396 entries in the Royal Irish Academy's 'Dictionary of Irish Biography', from 'James Wilson Agnew' to 'Samuel Brown Wylie', James McGuire and James Quinn, Dictionary of Irish Biography, 1st, 1-9, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
'Daniel O'Connell and the Irish Act of Union, 1800-1829' in, editor(s)James Kelly, John McCafferty and Charles Ivar McGrath , People, Politics and Power, Dublin, UCD Academic Press, 2009, pp175 - 189, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, King Dan: the Rise of Daniel O'Connell, 1775-1847, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2008, i-xii - 1-337pp
'Commemorating Emmet: Bicentenary Perspectives on the Emmet Legacy' in, Raffaela Baccolini and Patrick Leech , Constructing Identities: Translations, Cultures, Nations, Bononia University Press, 2008, pp207 - 214, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
'Prophecy and Posterity: Robert Emmet in America' in, editor(s)Anne Dolan, Patrick M. Geoghegan, Darryl Jones , Reinterpreting Emmet: essays on the life and legacy of Robert Emmet, Dublin, UCD Academic Press, 2007, pp170 - 184, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Anne Dolan, Darryl Jones (eds), Reinterpreting Emmet: Essays on the life and legacy of Robert Emmet, Dublin, UCD Academic Press, 2007, 1-258-
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Ireland and Empire, 1607-1969, Empire Online, V, 2007
'Howard, Frederick, fifth earl of Carlisle (1748-1825)', , H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 1st, Oxford, OUP, 2004, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Robert Emmet: a life. , 2nd edition., Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2004, i-xvii, 1 - 348pp
'The Irish House of Commons, 1799-1800' in, editor(s)Michael Brown, Patrick M. Geoghegan and James Kelly , The Irish Act of Union, 1800, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2003, pp1 - 245, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
David Dickson, Anne Dolan, Darryl Jones, Patrick M. Geoghegan and Kevin Rockett, Robert Emmet Symposium, September 2003, 2003, Trinity College Dublin
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Lord Castlereagh, 1st, Dundalk, Dundalgan Press, 2002, 1 - 71pp
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Robert Emmet: A Life, 1st, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2002, i-xvii, 1 - 348pp
'The Making of the Union' in, editor(s)Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan , Acts of Union , Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2001, pp34 - 45, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
'Castlereagh and the Making of the Union' in, editor(s)Ronnie Hanna , The Union: Essays on the British and Irish Connection, Newtownards, Colourpoint Books, 2001, pp9 - 20, [Patrick M. Geoghegan]
Patrick M. Geoghegan, REVOLUTION, COUNTER-REVOLUTION AND UNION: IRELAND IN THE 1790S, 2001, - 589-590
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'The Catholics and the Union', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, (X), 2000, p243 - 258
Michael Brown and Patrick M. Geoghegan, The Act of Union: Bicentennial Conference, 22-24 June 2000, 2000, House of Lords, College Green, Dublin
Patrick M. Geoghegan, CONTESTING IRELAND: IRISH VOICES AGAINST ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 2000, -
Patrick M. Geoghegan, The Irish Act of Union: A Study in High Politics, 1798-1801, 1st, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1999, i-xii, 1 - 290pp
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 1798 and the Irish Bar, 1998, -
Patrick M. Geoghegan, The Irish Act of Union, the Catholic Question, and the Collapse of Pitt's Ministry: A Study in High Politics, 1798-1801, NUI, Dublin, 1997
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'An Irish defeat? Waterloo in Irish history, 1815-1847', Waterloo 200, London, June 2013
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'O'Connell and Political Reform', Daniel o'Connell Summer School, Derrynane and Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry, September 2013
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Yellow Asylum Films and X-Press Feeders, 'The United Irishmen', The United Irishmen Remembered, Disremembered, Imagined, Misremembered., Ireland, Yellow Asylum Films, 2023, -
Patrick Geoghegan, 'A battle of giants': Waterloo, Wellington and Ireland , History Ireland, 23, (3), 2015, p22 - 26
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Daniel O'Connell in Dublin's history', The Little Museum of Dublin Dublin Lecture series, The Little Museum of Dublin, 22 January, 2014, Trevor White
Patrick Geoghegan, ''Talking History'', 2014, -
Patrick M. Geoghegan, We should change the Irish admissions system rather than abandon another generation to the cruelties of the points race, 2013, -
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Daniel O'Connell in History', Glasnevin Cemetery, 2011, -
Patrick Geoghegan, 'How we love the clash of knives', Review of People, Politics and Power, by Stephen Collins , Village, 123, (April), 2007
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Buck Whaley: drinking, dissipation and destruction', History Ireland, 15, (ii), 2007, p66--
Patrick Geoghegan, 'Love in the time of cholera', Review of The Pursuit of the Heiress: Aristocratic Marriage in Ireland, 1740-1840, by A.P.W. Malcomson , Magill, (May), 2007, p72-73
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'A bleak vision of Ireland', Review of Ireland: Social, Political and Religious, by Gustave de Beaumont , The Irish Times, (15 April), 2006
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'A provocative who's who', Review of Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The Irish Times, (6 November), 2004
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Adolphus Cooke, History Ireland, xii, (4), 2004, p66-
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1803', Blackrock Society Proccedings, 11, 2003, p34 - 46
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Which speech from the dock?', History Ireland, XI, (No. 3), 2003, p34 - 38
Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'An Act of Power and Corruption? The Union Debate', History Ireland, VIII, (No. 2), 2000, p22 - 26
Research Expertise
Description
The Anglo-Irish Relationship, Ireland in the 18th century, the United States in the 19th CenturyRecognition
Awards and Honours
Winner of the Provost's Teaching Award
Winner of PPI Award for best Specialist Speech Radio Programme
Memberships
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Fellow of Trinity College Dublin (FTCD)