Dr Ciaran O'Neill

Ussher Associate Professor in Nineteenth-Century History.

Research Interests

My work mostly clusters in the long nineteenth century and spans fairly diverse themes. I am interested in social and cultural history, the history of education and elites, the Irish relationship with empire, modern literature, and public history. Right now I am finishing a monograph about people, power, and the state, as well as a collaborative research project that focuses on the Eastern Caribbean. I am Principal Investigator of Seeing Ireland: Art, Culture, and Power in Paris 1922, funded by the Commemorations Unit at DTAGSM, and of RISING, a Creative Ireland Climate Action collaboration between Trinity, Brokentalkers, Dublin Theatre Festival, and Algorithm. I co-direct the Trinity’s Colonial Legacies project with my colleague, Dr Patrick Walsh. Recent and forthcoming work appears in Gender & History, Journal of Victorian Culture, Journal of the History of Sexuality, and Radical History Review. I have held visiting fellowships in the University of São Paulo, Boston College, University of Notre Dame, and in SMU Halifax, Nova Scotia. Since 2020 I have served as Deputy Director of Trinity Long Room Hub.

Publications

Some of these publications are available to download at https://tcd.academia.edu/ciaranoneill

Monographs (2)

2023. Life in a Palliative State: Power and Powerlessness in Union Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2023)
2014. Catholics of Consequence: Transnational Education, Social Mobility and the Irish Catholic Elite, 1850-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, hbk 2014, pbk 2016).

Winner of the James S. Donnelly Sr. Prize for History and the Social Sciences (2015)
Special Commendation: NUI Publication Prize in Irish History (2015).

Edited Collections (2)

2022. (ed.) w/ Finola O’Kane Crimmins, Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean; Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Studies in Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2022)
2013. (ed.) Irish Elites in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin: Four Courts Press).

Special Issue Journals (2)

2016. (ed.) w/ Enda Delaney, ‘Beyond the Nation: Transnational Ireland’, Éire-Ireland, 51/1&2, 280pp
2015. (ed.) w/ Bruce Bradley and Daire Keogh, ‘The Jesuits in Ireland’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 103/412, 601pp.

Book Series Editor (2)

Reappraisals in Irish History, Liverpool University Press
Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland, Liverpool University Press

Journal Articles (11)

2022 ‘‘‘Harvard Scientist seeks Typical Irishman’: Measuring the Irish Race 1888-1936,’ Radical History Review, 143 (May, 2022).
2022 w/ S. Karly Kehoe, ‘A Catholic Atlantic?,’ Journal of Victorian Culture (submitted)
2020 w/ Juliana Adelman, ‘Love, Consent, and the Sexual Script of a Victorian Affair in Dublin, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 29/3, 388-417.
2019. ‘’The Cage of my Moment’ A Conversation with Emma Donoghue about History and Fiction,’ Journal of Historical Fictions 2:2. [Open Access]
2019. ‘The Jesuits and the Irish Catholic Elite’, Espacio, Tiempo y Educacion, 6/2, 99-120. [Open Access]
2018. w/ Mary Hatfield, ‘Education and Empowerment: Cosmopolitan education and Irish women in the early nineteenth century, Gender & History, 30/1, 93-109.
2017. w/ Thomas Cauvin, ‘Negotiating public history in the Republic of Ireland: collaborative, applied and usable practices for the profession’, Historical Research. doi:10.1111/1468-2281.12192
2017. w/ Maeve Casserly, ‘Public History, Invisibility, and Women in the Republic of Ireland,’ The Public Historian, 39/2, 10-30. [Open Access]
2016. w/ Mo Moulton, Michael De Nie, Enda Delaney, ‘Roundtable Discussion: Teaching Transnational History’, Eire-Ireland, 51/1&2, 266-76.
2016. w/ Enda Delaney, ‘Beyond the Nation’, Eire-Ireland, 51/1&2, 7-14.
2009. ‘The Irish schoolboy novel’, Eire-Ireland, 44/1-2, 147-68

Book Chapters (13)

2023. ‘The Literary Americanisation of Ireland’, in Fionnuala Walsh, America in Ireland: Culture and Society 1841-1925 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
2022. ‘In Search of Excess: Lambert Blair at Large in the Caribbean,’ in Ciaran O’Neill and Finola O’Kane (eds), Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean; Comparative Perspectives, Studies in Imperialism, (Manchester: Manchester University Press)
2020. ‘How Should Historians Approach Elites?,’ in Francois Denord, Mikael Palme, Bertrand Réau (eds) Researching Elites and Power (Springer) 159-168. [Open Access]
2019. w/ Petter Sandgren (1), ‘Elites and Education’, in Tanya FitzGerald (ed), The International Handbook of Historical Studies in Education (Springer) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0942-6_39-1
2018. ‘Bourgeois Ireland, or, on the benefits of keeping one’s hands clean’, in James Kelly (ed), The Cambridge History of Ireland, 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
2017. ‘Literacy and Education’, in Eugenio F. Biagini and Mary E. Daly (eds), The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,). pp 244-60.
2017. ‘Education, cosmopolitan cultural capital, and European elites in the nineteenth century’ in Susan Hegarty and James Kelly (eds), Schools and Schooling, 1650-2000: new perspectives on the history of education(Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp 93-109.
2016. w/ Mai Yatani, ‘Ambition, Women, and the City: Irish women novelists 1890-1910’, in Anna Pilz and Whitney Standlee (eds), Irish Women's Writing 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp 100-20.
2014. ‘The Irish schoolboy novel’, in Maria Luddy and James M. Smyth (eds),Children, childhood, and Irish society: 1500 to the present (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 183-197. [reprint]
2013. ‘Introduction’, in Ciaran O’Neill (ed.) Irish Elites in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp 17-30.
2013. ‘Power, wealth and Catholic identity in Ireland, 1850-1900’, in O. Rafferty (ed.), Irish Catholic Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
2012. ‘Education, imperial careers, and the Irish Catholic elite in the nineteenth century’, in D.J. Dickson, J. Pyz and C Shepard (eds), Irish Classrooms and British Empire: Imperial contexts for the origins of modern education (Dublin: Four Courts), pp. 98-110.
2010. ‘Pearse, Parnell & the priests: history and politics in the Irish schoolboy novel’, in Katerina Jencova et al (eds.), The Politics of Irish Writing (Prague: Charles University Centre for Irish Studies), pp. 69-77.

Pamphlets and Art Catalogue Essays (6)

2022. The Public History of Slavery in Dublin (Dublin: Dublin City Library and Archive) [Open Access]
2022. ‘The Irish Artist in the World: Culture, Markets, and Modernity’, in Who Do We Say We Are? Irish Art 1922 | 2022 (South Bend: Snite Museum of Modern Art)
2021. ‘Dublin’s Lost Wetlands and the Technosphere,’ Systems (Dublin: Science Gallery).
2021. ‘Not So Innocent’, Dublin Review of Books, Jan 2020. [Open Access]
2016. Exhibition Catalogue Essay, in Mick O’Dea, The Foggy Dew (Dublin: Royal Hibernian Academy)
2015. ‘Programme Note’, Famished Castle, a Rough Magic Theatre production, 6-23 May.

Teaching

I teach freshman modules on Irish, British, and imperial social and cultural history. At Sophister level I teach a specialist year-long module on Ireland, Modernity, and Empire and another on History and Fiction. I founded and for many years directed the M.Phil in Public History and Cultural Heritage along with Dr Georgina Laragy. In 2015 I won the Provost’s Teaching Award at Trinity College Dublin.

Postdoctoral Supervision

I have the privilege of supervising, or co-supervising the following postdocs:

Dr Mobeen Hussain, Trinity Colonial Legacies Project Postdoctoral Fellow, 2021-2023.
Dr Joseph Curran, ‘An Urban History of Dublin Castle 1801-1880, IRC Postdoctoral Fellow 2021-2023.

PhD Supervision

I have the privilege of supervising, or co-supervising the following graduate students:

Clare Morrison, ‘Identity and Irishmen in the Chinese Customs Service’ (estimated completion 2022) co-supervising with Dr Isabella Jackson
Shelby Zimmerman, ‘The Medicalisation of Death in Dublin City Workhouses, 1872-1920’ (estimated completion 2022) co-supervising with Dr Georgina Laragy
Conor Dodd, ‘Glasnevin Cemetery – Revolution and Commemoration’ (estimated completion 2024) sole supervisor
Cydney Thompson, ‘Adapting the Museum to the Digital Age,’ (estimated completion 2025), co-supervising with Dr Jennifer Edmond
Holly Ritchie, ‘Saviours and Slavers: the Irish in the Catholic Atlantic 1763-1860,’ (estimated completion 2025), co-supervising with Prof Karly Kehoe, SMU Halifax.
Oliver Brennan, ‘William Patrick Ryan (1867-1942): A life,’ (estimated completion 2026), sole supervisor.

PhD Graduates & Former Postdoctoral Mentees

Dr Sarah Hunter, Health of a nation - the physical and societal impact of Irish medical missionaries working in Bengal, 1885-1935 (Graduated 2016) co-supervised with Prof David Dickson
Dr Mai Yatani, Women's Reading Habits in fin de siècle Ireland (graduated 2017) co-supervised with Prof David Dickson
Dr Mary Hatfield, Growing up in Ireland: constructions of gender and childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland (graduated 2018) co-supervised with Prof David Dickson
Dr Jerome Devitt,, Defending Ireland from the Irish - The British and Irish Executive's reaction to Fenianism 1863-69 (graduated 2018) co-supervised with Prof David Dickson
Dr Aidan Beatty, Property: Race, Gender and the History of a Transnational Idea (GOI Postdoctoral Fellow 2016-18) sole mentor.
Antonia Hart, Irish Women in Business in the nineteenth century (completed 2021) co-supervised with Dr Richard McMahon (MIC)
Catherine Healy, A Cultural History of the Irish Domestic Servant in Britain and the US, c. 1870-1945 (graduated 2022) sole supervisor