History and Philosophy

Having taken the BA degree in History and Politics at Trinity College Dublin (1999) I completed my PhD in History ¿ on the cultural legacy of World War One - at TCD in 2005. During my time as a graduate student, I was fortunate to have my work supported by a Government of Ireland Scholarship (Irish Research Council) Whilst conducting archival research in France, I worked an an English-language assistant at ENS Cachan and participated in research seminars at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.   Appointed Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Galway in 2005, my teaching and research interests lie in the area of modern European history.

My monograph The Disarmament of Hatred: Marc Sangnier, French Catholicism and the legacy of the First World War, 1914-1945 was published with Palgrave Macmillan in 2012; it analyses the Christian Democratic peace movement in France in the aftermath of the First World War and its transnational contacts with peace activists across Europe, secular and religious. In 2013, on strength of this monograph, the US-based Peace History Society awarded me the Scott Bills Memorial Prize, a biennial award which recognizes an outstanding first book in the field of peace history. As well as publishing articles on pacifism and on religious history in front-line international journals such as Parlement(s): revue d¿histoire, the European History Quarterly and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, I am also co-editor, with my Galway colleagues Róisín Healy and Enrico Dal Lago, of three peer-reviewed edited volumes. Two of these  -- Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War One (Brill, 2016) and The Global 1916: An anti-imperial moment (Routledge, 2018) - examine the transnational experience of the First World War from novel perspectives and are based on conferences we organized here at the University of Galway. The third - Family Histories of World War II. Survivors and descendants (Bloomsbury, 2021) ¿ addresses intergenerational memory of World War Two drawing, uniquely, on the family experiences of the University of Galway¿s diverse and international staff.  

My research-led teaching covers a wide range of modern European history but with a particular emphasis on the First World War and its legacies, French history and religious history. In keeping with this specialism. I have authored a number of thematic articles for `1914¿1918-online. The International Encyclopedia of the First World War,¿ which has become an important reference work in the field of First World War studies. I have successfully supervised a doctoral student, Dr Gavan Duffy, whose PhD (History)  ¿ on the history of the League of Nations C Mandates, former German territories and the British Dominions in the southern hemisphere- was awarded in 2020.

For my ongoing research project I am investigating the 1920s physical and cultural reconstruction of the north-east of France after the First World War, including its religious dimensions at diocesan level. My past and present research resonates with a number of the School of History and Philosophy¿s Signature Research Themes, in particular Religion and Faith/Beliefs in Society, State and Society but also, because of my mongraph¿s emphasis on peace and youth activism, with the themes of Childhood, Youth and Gender. Research and professional collaborations have included membership of the advisory board of the AHRC-funded Great War and Global Religions research project, which was based at the Faculty of History, Oxford University, from 2014-19Currently I serve on the founding editorial board of a French-based international journal Histoire, Europe et Relations Internationales, Cahiers Sirice-Pierre Renouvin (since July 2022) publishing in French and English. I am also a regular contributor to the national media including Irish-language media such as TG4 (national television service) and RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta (national Irish-language radio).