I am a historian of early modern Ireland and England with a special focus on sixteenth-century Ireland and Anglo-Irish relations. My research examines the socio-political impact of war on identity formation amongst Ireland's minority Old English population during the Nine Years' War (1594-1603). My monograph, The Old English in Early Modern Ireland: The Palesmen and the Nine Years' War, 1594-1603, was awarded the 2019 National University of Ireland Publication Prize in History. I have published articles and essays exploring aspects of sixteenth-century Anglo-Irish relations, political, economic, colonial, and legal history. I published numerous edited works with Digital Humanities projects, especially Corpus of Electronic Texts (https://celt.ucc.ie/), including all of William Penn's works and correspondence relating to Ireland. As part of an NEH funded project, I recently designed a Virtual Reality history tour of Kilcolman Castle, Edmund Spenser's Irish residence, along with teaching resources (https://player.wondavr.com/p/ab8ebc52-bd03-445d-ae9c-851423ec1e5d#courtyard).
I have had significant success securing research funding. I have held visiting research fellowships with the Arts and Humanities Institute, Maynooth University, and the Moore Institute, University of Galway. Before
coming to Liverpool Hope, I held a three-year Marie Curie International Research
Fellowship at University College Cork and Concordia University in
Montreal. I was also an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral fellow on
a project which explored William Penn's Irish experiences and his early
trans-Atlantic networks.
I completed my PhD at University College Cork, a MA at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a BA at Mount Allison University. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Teaching Specialisms:
Early modern Ireland, England, and Europe; colonialism; identity formation; war and conflict; witch beliefs and witch hunting.
I welcome PhD proposals relating to war, civilian experiences, espionage, petitions, identity, nationalist ideology, colonialism, and aspects of political and/or social persecution/oppression in early modern Ireland, England, Europe, and North America.
School/Faculty Roles:
- PGR Coordinator for the School of Humanities
- Chair of Humanities PGR Group
- Humanities Research Committee
- Second-year Single Honours History Coordinator
- Third-year Single Honours History Coordinator
Recent Publications:
Monograph
2019 The Old English in Early Modern Ireland: The Palesmen and the Nine Years’ War, 1594-1603 (Boydell & Brewer, Irish Historical Monographs Series) (Winner of the NUI Publication Prize in Irish History)
Journal Articles & Chapters
Forthcoming, ‘Abuse and Misconduct in Sixteenth-Century Armies in Ireland,’ in Tom Bartlett (ed.), Militarium: The Irish Soldier from Earliest Times to the Present
Forthcoming, ‘Kilcolman
Castle in Virtual Reality: Teaching, Research, and Outreach’, with Thomas Herron and Victoria McAlister, in Thomas Finan (ed.), New
Perspectives in Castle Studies (Archeopress)
2022 ‘The Baron of Delvin’s Plot for the
Reformation of Ireland, March 1584’,
Analecta Hibernica, No. 52, pp. 145-164.
2019 ‘“Trust, Desert, Power and skill to
serue”: The Old English and Military
Identities in late Elizabethan Ireland’, in Matthew Woodcock & Cian O’Mahony (eds.), Early Modern Military Identities, 1560-1639 (Boydell &
Brewer) pp. 138-157.
2019 ‘“A lanterne to looke ... into their
very hartes”: The Palesmen’s Petitions
During the Nine Years’ War’, in Vincent Carey, Sarah Covington & Valerie McGowan-Doyle (eds.), Early Modern Ireland: New Sources, Methods, and
Perspectives, (Routledge), pp. 166-179.
2016 ‘Profits and Patriotism: Nicholas
Weston, Old English Merchants, and Ireland’s
Nine Years War, 1594-1603’, Irish
Economic and Social History,
Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 1-28.
2016 ‘“May
she be rewarded in heauen for righting her poore subiects in Irelande”: Lawyer Richard
Hadsor and the Authorship of an Elizabethan
Treatise on Ireland,’ The Irish Jurist,
Vol. 55, pp. 1-24.
2015 ‘James Fitzpiers Fitzgerald, Captain Thomas Lee, and the Problem of “Secret Traitors”: Conflicted Loyalties During the Nine Years’ War, 1594-1603’, Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 39, No. 156, pp. 573-594.
Other Peer-Reviewed Publications
I am part of an international collaborative Virtual Reality project, Castle to Classrooms, funded by a Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities ($100,000). I worked with colleagues in the United States to design free online courses, along with teaching resources, for a highly detailed VR model of Kilcolman Castle, a late-medieval Irish tower house which became the Irish residence of the famous English poet, planter, and administrator, Edmund Spenser, author of The Faerie Queene.
2022 ‘Kilcolman: The History, Culture
and Politics of an Early Modern Irish Castle’, a 3D virtual reality tour, URL: https://player.wondavr.com/p/231b305f-4fb9-4e72-9b4b-d638349e79c1#main_yard
2022 Teaching Resources for
‘Kilcolman: The History, Culture and Politics of an Early Modern Irish Castle’,
URL: https://core.ecu.edu/herront/Castles-Classrooms-Teaching/history-tour.html
Digital Humanities Publications
2016 (Ed.), William Penn, A Seasonable Caveat Against Popery. Or A Pamphlet, Entituled, An Explanation of the Roman-Chatholick Belief, Briefly Examined. 1670. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2016 (Ed.), William Penn, A Letter of Love to the Young-Convinced. 1669. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2016 (Ed.), William Penn, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Once more Briefly Debated & Defended, by the Authority of Reason, Scripture, and Antiquity. 1670. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2016 (Ed.), Documents relating to William Penn’s victualing activities in Ireland. Edited transcriptions of letters by various authors contained in Irish, British, and American archives. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2016 (Ed.), Correspondence relating to William Penn’s 1669-70 visit to Ireland. Edited transcriptions of letters by various authors contained in Irish, British, and American archives. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2016 (Ed.), Correspondence relating to William Penn’s 1666-67 visit to Ireland. Edited transcriptions of letters by various authors contained in Irish, British, and American archives. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2014 (Ed.), ‘Intelligences for her Ma:ts services in the Province of Leinster’ (3 June 1600). Edited transcription of unknown author, from P.R.O., S.P. 63/207, part iv, no. 3, fos. 9r-18v. Includes Prefatory Note by the editor. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
2009 (Ed.), ‘The greevances of the Englishe Pale’ (c. 1598). Edited transcription of unknown author, from P.R.O., S.P. 63/202, part iv, no. 60, fos. 200-204. Includes introduction by the editor. Corpus of Electronic Texts.
Other Publications
2019 ‘The Old English in Early Modern Ireland’, Proofed, Boydell & Brewer Blog: https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/early-modern-and-modern-history/the-old-english-in-early-modern-ireland/
2014 ‘Ireland’s Nine Years’ War (1594-1603) and the Foundations of Irish Nationalism’, Nuacht, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 12-13.
2012 ‘The Nine Years’ War: Ireland’s Sixteenth-Century War of Independence’, The Shamrock Leaf, Vol. 52, pp. 26-30.