Ciara Henderson

With an interest in human connection and empathy and the ways in which societies socialise responses to death, Dr Ciara Henderson‘s research investigates the everyday experiences of death and how mortuary conventions shape human health and wellbeing. More specifically, Ciara’s research explores how families and communities have understood, ritualised, and responded to reproductive and infant loss over time, and the social, moral and religious frameworks that shape those responses.

Tracing the evolution of Irish death rituals through the 19th and 20th century, for adults and babies, a cornerstone of her interdisciplinary work is cultural aspects of death, dying and bereavement. Ciara’s more recent publications focus on representations of after death communication in Irish folklore.

As a postdoctoral research fellow, Ciara works on a broad portfolio of health related research at the School of Nursing & Midwifery, TCD, contributing to international research networks, policy development, and science communication on bereavement, mental health, and culturally sensitive healthcare practices. She sits on the editorial board for the academic journal Mortality, is executive council member of the Association for the Study of Death and Society (ASDS), Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Science Communications Coordinator for the EU COST Action research network CA22159 (European Histories of Healthcare). Prior to her move to the Higher Education sector, Ciara’s 20+ years industry experience focused on the production of marketing research, feasibility studies and policy related research, and her work has featured in national and industry publications.

How the Arts and Humanities Help Transform Communal Suffering into Social Resilience: Case Studies from Trinity Medical and Health Humanities (2026) Irish Humanities Alliance Annual Conference, Panel Presentation, SETU Waterford

Lifelines: Tracing Stillbirth in the Social and Medical Model of Death (2026) Society for the Social History of Medicine, Panel Presentation (Causes of Death with EU COST Action 22116 The Great Leap), University of Leeds

Parent Advocacy and the Evolution of Perinatal Bereavement Care in the 20th century (2026) Reproductive Healthcare Providers across Europe (19th-20th centuries), Women’s Studies Institute, University of Granada

Henderson, C. (2025). Catharín na Leanbh (Village of Children): The use of cillíní for the burial of the unbaptised in rural Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries. In R. Spinelli & R. Lacy (Eds), Death, Commemoration, and Cultural Meaning: Past and Present. Berghan Books.

Henderson, C. (2025b). Soul Lights: After Death Communications and Parental Grief in Irish Folklore through the nineteenth century. In S. Ryan (Ed.), Childhood and the Irish: A miscellany (pp. 272–277). Wordwell Books.