Professor Tadhg O'Keeffe BA, MA, PhD, DEA, FSA
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Biography:
I am a first-generation Dubliner - my late father was born in Kilworth, county Cork, and my mother in Tullamore, county Offaly. I graduated from UCD with a BA (1st class hons) in Archaeology and Geography in 1983, and an MA (1st class hons) in Archaeology in 1984. I won the NUI's three-year Travelling Studentship in Archaeology that year. Rather than use the award as funding for a PhD overseas, I decided to move around various universities and study things that interested me. I went to the University of Durham in 1985-86, the Courtauld Institute of Art in the University of London in 1986-87, and the Centre d'Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale of the Université de Poitiers in 1987-88. While in Durham my research interests broadened from castellology and medieval landscape/settlement histories to include Romanesque architecture. In 1988 I was awarded a DEA in the History of Art (specialising in Romanesque) by the Université de Poitiers. I returned to UCD for my PhD in Archaeology, and I presented my thesis on Irish Romanesque buildings in 1991. After a few years as a contract archaeologist I joined the Department (now School) of Archaeology in UCD as a post-doctoral Newman Scholar, which gave me the opportunity to do what I most enjoy doing: teaching. In 1996 I joined the academic staff as a temporary-appointment College Lecturer, becoming permanent in 1998. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002 and to Associate Professor in 2006.
Over the past twenty-five years I have been involved with an assortment of different professional societies and organisations, sometimes in an administrative or committee-member capacity. I currently serve on the editorial boards of three international refereed journals, and I have refereed papers for a dozen-odd comparable journals as well as book proposals for a similar number of major international publishers. Over the past twenty-five years I have given nearly 250 public or conference lectures, ranging from specially-invited papers in places like UCLA and Cambridge, to conference papers in places like New Orleans and Tartu, to less formal talks to local historical societies in rural Ireland. I have examined PhD theses (mainly in Archaeology but also in History and Historical Geography) in Belfast, Bristol, Cambridge, DIT, Durham, Glasgow, London, Oxford, and Southampton. Within UCD I have served (and continue to serve) on assorted College and University boards and committees, and for three years (2004-6) I was director of the UCD International Summer School. Within the School of Archaeology itself I have supervised six PhD theses to completion (Hanneke Ronnes, Andrew Tierney, Paddy Ryan, Diarmuid O Riain, Sinead Quirke and David Whelan), as well as forty-odd MA (and three MLitt) dissertations over the past fourteen years. I was awarded a UCD President's Research award in 2002-3 and an IRCHSS Senior Research Fellowship in 2008-9, and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) in 2007.
Away from Archaeology I share my life with my wife Margaret, Evan (aged ten), Anne-Elise (aged seven), and some much-loved animals. Music has been my biggest passion since I bought Led Zeppelin II with Confirmation money in 1975! My now-oversized collection is unlikely to be coveted by people unfamiliar with jazz, blues, or the Grateful Dead, but that's their loss. I am also a lapsed Spurs fan (though I can still name the 1973 League Cup-winning team) and a frustrated Cork hurling fan.