Dr Ciaran O'Neill

Ussher Associate Professor in Nineteenth-Century History.

Research Interests

My work mostly clusters in the long nineteenth century and spans diverse themes. I am interested in the social and cultural history of Ireland and empire, the history of education and elites, colonial legacies, modern literature, and public history. I co-direct the Trinity’s Colonial Legacies project with my colleague, Dr Patrick Walsh. Recent work appears in Gender & History, Journal of Victorian Culture, Journal of British Studies, and Settler Colonial Studies. I also co-edit, with Enda Delaney and Maria Luddy, the Reappraisals in Irish History Series for Liverpool University Press. I have previously held visiting fellowships in the University of São Paulo, Boston College, University of Notre Dame, and in SMU Halifax, Nova Scotia. For the academic year 2025-26 I’ll be a Visiting Fellow at HEX (Centre of Excellence in the History of Experience) at Tampere University in Finland.

Publications

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

Monographs

2024. Power and Powerlessness in Union Ireland: Life in a Palliative State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)
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 Books

2025. (ed.) w/ Hannah K. Smyth, Richard Legay, and Georgina Laragy, Public History in Global Perspective Inquiry, Exchange and Practice (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg) [Open Access]
2023. (ed.) w/ Finola O’Kane Crimmins, Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean; Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Studies in Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, hbk 2023, pbk 2024)
2013. (ed.) Irish Elites in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin: Four Courts Press).

Special Issue Journals

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.

Journal Articles

2025. ‘Complex Solidarities: The Public History of Irish and Native American Allyship,’ Settler Colonial Studies, April, 1–26. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2025.2484936. [Open Access]
2024. w/ S. Karly Kehoe, ‘“A colony to themselves:” Scottish Highland Settler Colonialism in British North America, 1770-1804.,’ Journal of British Studies, (Open Access, 2024)
2023 w/ S. Karly Kehoe, ‘A Catholic Atlantic?,’ Journal of Victorian Culture (Volume 28, Issue 4, (October 2023), 582–589 [Open Access]
2022. ‘‘‘Harvard Scientist seeks Typical Irishman’: Measuring the Irish Race 1888-1936,’ Radical History Review, 143 (May, 2022), 89-108.
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

2025. w/ Hannah K. Smyth, ‘The Radical Potential of Public History in Global Perspective’ in Hannah K. Smyth, Ciaran O’Neill, Richard Legay, and Georgina Laragy, Public History in Global Perspective Inquiry, Exchange and Practice (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg), pp 1-14.
2025. w/ Mobeen Hussain and Patrick Walsh, ‘‘Trinity’s Colonial Legacies: Transparency, Instrumentality, and Agency in an Engaged Research Project’ in Peter Bille Larsen, Markéta Křížová (eds), European University Legacies: Problematic Heritage and Contemporary Practice (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2025), pp 67-95. [Open Access]
2025. ‘The Literary Americanisation of Ireland 1841-1925’, in Fionnuala Walsh, (ed) America in Ireland: Culture and Society 1841-1925 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 120-143.
2023. ‘In Search of Excess: Lambert Blair and his appetites,’ in Ciaran O’Neill and Finola O’Kane (eds), Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Studies in Imperialism, (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp 193-214.
2023. w/ Finola O’Kane, ‘Introduction,’ in Ciaran O’Neill and Finola O’Kane (eds), Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Studies in Imperialism, (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp 1-18.
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), pp 517-541.
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), pp 259-273
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

2024. ‘Provincial Identity in Ireland’ in Marty Fahey (ed.), The O’Brien Collection: 300 Years of Irish Art and Artisanship (Chicago, 2024)
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.

Working Papers

2025. w/ Antonia Hart and Patrick Walsh, Working Paper on Trinity’s Tenants. June 2025 (v.2)
2023. w/ Mobeen Hussain and Patrick Walsh, Working Paper on TCD and Slavery. March 2022 (v.2)
2023. w/ Mobeen Hussain and Patrick Walsh, Working Paper on George Berkeley’s Legacies at TCD. March 2023 (v.2)
2022. w/ Mobeen Hussain and Patrick Walsh, Working Paper on Human Remains from Inishbofin held in the Haddon-Dixon collection at TCD. March 2022 (v.2)

Teaching

I teach fresh modules on Irish, British, and imperial social and cultural history. At Sophister level I teach a specialist year-long module on Ireland’s Colonial Legacies and another on History and Fiction. I teach an M.Phil module on Consuming History. 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.

PhD Supervision

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

Holly Ritchie, ‘Saviours and Slavers: the Irish in the Catholic Atlantic 1763-1860,’ (estimated completion 2026), co-supervising with Prof Karly Kehoe, SMU Halifax.
Oliver Brennan, ‘William Patrick Ryan (1867-1942): A life,’ (estimated completion 2026), sole supervisor.
Gabriel Opare, co-supervising with Dr Phil Mullen (Sociology)

PhD Graduates (10) & Former Postdoctoral Mentees (3)

Dr Conor Dodd, ‘Prospect of Power: Regime, revolution and the reconfiguration of Glasnevin Cemetery, 1913-23’ (completed 2025) sole supervisor.
Dr Clare Morrison, ‘Identity and Irishmen in the Chinese Customs Service’ (2024) co-supervised with Dr Isabella Jackson.
Dr Shelby Zimmerman, ‘The Medicalisation of Death in Dublin City Workhouses, 1872-1920’ (completed 2024) co-supervised with Dr Georgina Laragy.
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)
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.
Dr Antonia Hart, Irish Women in Business in the nineteenth century (completed 2021) co-supervised with Dr Richard McMahon (MIC)
Dr Catherine Healy, A Cultural History of the Irish Domestic Servant in Britain and the US, c. 1870-1945 (graduated 2022) sole supervisor
Dr. Cydney Thompson, ‘Adapting the Museum to the Digital Age,’ (completed 2025), co-supervised with Dr Jennifer Edmond.