Dr. Susan Flavin

Associate Professor in History

Research Interests

Dr Flavin’s research focuses on the history of consumption and material culture in early modern Britain and Ireland. She is particularly interested in how food, drink, and everyday domestic practices illuminate wider questions of identity and cultural exchange. Her work is grounded in interdisciplinary approaches, integrating archival research with archaeology, biomolecular science, and experimental reconstruction.

In 2019 Dr Flavin was awarded a €1.5 million European Research Council Starting Grant for FoodCult: Food, Culture and Identity in Ireland c.1550–1650 (2019–2025), which she led as Principal Investigator. The project brought together historians, archaeologists, scientists, heritage practitioners, and creative collaborators to investigate early modern diet and its cultural meanings. A major strand of the project used beer as a case study in practice-based history, exploring material processes and embodied knowledge.

This work led to the recreation of a sixteenth-century Irish beer and to the documentaryDrunk? Adventures in Sixteenth-Century Brewing(2023), which she co-produced and presented. Her current research builds on this interdisciplinary model, with particular interests in brewing, intoxicants, practice-based history, and the cultural politics of food in early modern Ireland and Britain.

Impact and Engagement

Public engagement is central to Dr Flavin’s research practice. She works closely with museums, heritage institutions, and contemporary producers to translate archival and scientific research into public-facing formats.

In 2026 she collaborated with Dublin Castle on a six-part public lecture series and has contributed research to the development of a forthcoming permanent exhibition there. The brewing reconstruction has involved ongoing collaboration with Canvas Brewery in Co. Tipperary, developing historically informed beer grounded in archival research and experimental reconstruction. The project continues to engage living history practitioners and heritage institutions in the revival of early modern technologies and craft practices.

Her research has attracted sustained international media, radio, and podcast coverage, extending its reach beyond academic audiences and demonstrating the wider public resonance of interdisciplinary work on food and drink history.

Select Publications
Books

• Flavin, S. & Taverner, C., Food and Drink in Early Modern Ireland (Bloomsbury, 2026, forthcoming).
• Flavin, S., Consumption and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Ireland: Saffron, Stockings and Silk (Woodbridge, 2014).
• Flavin, S. & Jones, E. T. (eds), Bristol’s Trade with Ireland and the Continent 1503–1601 (Dublin, 2009).

Articles and Chapters (Recent)

• Patel, S. & Flavin, S., ‘Brewing knowledge: filmmaking as research in experimental archaeology’, Media Practice and Education (2025).
• Flavin, S., Meltonville, M., Taverner, C., et al., ‘Understanding Early Modern Beer: An Interdisciplinary Case-Study’, The Historical Journal 66.3 (2023).
• Taverner, C. & Flavin, S., ‘Food and Power in Sixteenth-Century Ireland: Studying Household Accounts from Dublin Castle’, The Historical Journal 66.1 (2023).
• Flavin, S., ‘Food and Social Politics in Early Modern Ireland: Representing the Peasant in The Parliament of Clan Tomas’, Food & History 20.1 (2022).
• McClatchie, M., Flavin, S., et al., ‘Unearthing a New Food Culture: Fruits in Early Modern Ireland’, in S. M. Valamoti, A. Dimoula & M. Ntinou (eds), Cooking with Plants in Ancient Europe and Beyond (Leiden: Sidestone, 2022), 229–38.
• Flavin, S., McClatchie, M., Montgomery, J., Beglane, F., Dunne, J., O’Carroll, E., & Parnell, A., ‘An Interdisciplinary Approach to Historic Diet and Foodways: The FoodCult Project’, European Journal of Food, Drink and Society 1.1 (2021).

Teaching and Supervision

Dr Flavin’s teaching focuses on social and cultural themes in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century British and Irish history, from a comparative European perspective.

She welcomes postgraduate supervision in the areas of early modern consumption and material culture, food and drink history, intoxicants and sociability, and interdisciplinary or practice-based approaches to historical research.

Dr Flavin on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Room 3108
Department of History
Trinity College
Dublin 2.

Telephone: +353 1 896 3398
Fax: +353 1 896 3995
Email: sflavin@tcd.ie