Ezequiel Mercau
Dr Ezequiel Mercau is an Irish Research Council post-doctoral fellow. He grew up in Argentina and studied History at UCD, where he wrote an MA dissertation on the Sunningdale Agreement in Northern Ireland.
He recently completed his PhD at the University of Copenhagen, as part of a collective research project entitled ‘Embers of empire: the receding frontiers of post-imperial Britain’. His thesis examines the Falklands conflict in the wider context of global imperial decline and the lingering purchase of the idea of Greater Britain. It shows that, though the conflict was brief and of little significance in a Cold War context, it had a disproportionate effect on British political culture, bringing to the fore fundamental disagreements over the nature and scope of Britishness that persisted well after the end of the war. Based on extensive archival research, conducted throughout the British and Irish Isles, Argentina and the Falkland Islands, as well as personal interviews, memoirs and autobiographies, his thesis argues that the Falklands dispute cannot be fully understood divorced from its imperial moorings. His research was generously funded by the University of Copenhagen, the Velux Foundation and the Shackleton Scholarship Fund—which finances projects related to the Falkland Islands.
He is currently working on publishing his first monograph, and exploring the problem of Greater Britain in the context of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, 1968–1986.
Contact:
Email: ezequiel.mercau@ucd.ie