Catch up with Faculty staff in recent media. Providing knowledge and understanding through their writing, speaking, research, and expert comment.

Listings are in staff alphabetical order. Any School items appear at the end of the listings. Please click on the relevant link(s) in each section to access the media item.

 

Professor Aileen Douglas, School of English, is co-curator of an exhibition celebrating the 300th anniversary of Gulliver’s Travels. Professor Douglas and the exhibition feature in a number of media items:

 

Dr Alina Cosma, School of Psychology, has written an article about youth protests in Europe, stating that while ‘every generation experiences turbulence while navigating adolescence, the pressures experienced by gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – are different and seem more pervasive’ in The Conversation on 22 October 2026: Youth protests across Europe: the overlapping crises facing gen Z.

 

Professor Daniel Geary, School of Histories and Humanities, provides expert insights into the US midterm elections, ‘what is happening, where to watch and what it all means for US politics’ in this piece for RTÉ Behind the Story on 26 October 2026: Behind The Story: Your guide to the US midterms.

 

Dr Isabella Jackson, School of Histories and Humanities, is quoted in this article on how Mao Zedong, China’s modern founder ‘is associated less with his failures — which authorities downplay — than with national pride and persistence in the face of challenges’ for young Chinese people.  The article includes: ‘“Mao was very good at using examples from everyday life or traditional sayings that ordinary people used and applying them to his ideology and worldview” said Isabella Jackson, an assistant professor in Chinese history at Trinity College Dublin. Jackson linked Mao’s revived influence to the “fracturing of society in the 21st century” but added that another reason could be spiritual. “The government in China is not keen on religion, so people are turning to some alternative kind of higher thought system to help them” she said.’ NBC News website on 10 October 2026: Frustrated by a slowing economy, young Chinese turn to Mao Zedong for guidance. (Subscriber content)

 

Dr Gillian Kenny, Visiting Research Fellow, School of Histories and Humanities, research on folklore, mythology, gender studies and the new podcast she will co-present called ‘Unruly History’ feature in this article in the Irish Times on 26 October 2026: The banshee is alive and well on the western seaboard.

 

Professor Ronan Lyons, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, features in this article about the launch of his book ‘Brittle’ about the housing crisis in the Irish Independent on 27 October 2026: Ronan Lyons ‘grateful' as Daft.ie backs housing crisis book with bulk order to propel it to top of the charts.

 

Dr Ann Nolan, School of Social Work and Social Policy and Dr Neasa Ní Chiaráin, School of Linguistic, Speech, and Communication Sciences, feature in further media items following their research and publication of their policy briefing policy, which finds that the housing crisis is threatening the sustainability of Irish as a community language in the West Kerry Gaeltacht.

 

Professor Ian Robertson, Fellow Emeritus, School of Psychology, has written an opinion piece saying that ‘we must look inside ourselves from time to time – and talking this through with another person can be a crucial part of this’ in the Irish Times on 24 October 2026: James McClean’s stance on opening up may work for him but we are not all elite sportspeople. (Subscriber content)

 

Dr Patrick Walsh, School of Histories and Humanities, provides expert comment on the issue of ground rents and ‘describes the payments as traces of an older pattern of landownership still embedded in the modern state’ in an article in the Dublin Inquirer on 23 October 2026: “It’s giving colonialism”: Ireland still owes rent to dukes and earls. 

 

Dr Chelsea Whittaker, School of Education, has written an article about the proposed language testing for citizenship reforms in Ireland, in which applicants will be required to demonstrate proficiency in English, Irish or Irish Sign Language, and that this could have consequences for the provision of classes teaching English for speakers of other languages (known as ESOL) in Ireland. The Conversation on 19 October 2026: Ireland proposes language testing for citizenship: more demands on already stretched English teaching.

 

School of Histories and Humanities. The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) is an all-island and international research programme at Trinity, which was founded by Dr Peter Crooks, Department of History, TCD, and is led by the School of Histories and Humanities with the School of Computer Science and Statistics, TCD, and other partners. The VRTI is working to reconstruct the Public Record Office of Ireland archive which was destroyed in 1922 at the outset of the Civil War, and whose records span 750 years of Irish history from 1172–1922.

 

School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies. The recent conference and evening event to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Modern Languages in Trinity is the feature of an article stating that ‘At a recent conference, President Catherine Connolly and others warned against the commodification of languages and translation through AI’ in the Irish Times on 19 October 2026: Monocultural Ireland was always a fantasy.