Our Shared Built Military Heritage

Funded by the Government of Ireland / HEA Shared Island North-South Research Programme 2022 and led by UCD and The Open University, Our Shared Built Military Heritage: The online mapping, inventorying and recording of the Army Barracks of Ireland, 1690-1921 (OSBMH) explores this largely unknown built heritage. It aims to develop a new public understanding and appreciation for this history and its place within Ireland’s culture. 

Imaginative Literature and Social Trust, 1990-2025

The IRC-funded TRUST project is the first study of social trust to take imaginative literature as its primary archive and body of evidence. Engaging the literature of the US, Russia, and Ireland since 1990, this comparative project breaks new ground both in the burgeoning interdisciplinary scholarship on trust and in contemporary literary studies. 

Applying AI to the Printing Press: Transforming Visual Communication During the Protestant Reformation

Led by SFI-IRC Pathway Programme Research Fellow Dr Drew Thomas, this project uses computer vision and deep learning to examine the role of images, illustrations and visual communication in the religious publications during the Protestant Reformation. 

The Age of Civil Wars in Europe

ERC-funded project investigating the origins, courses, and legacies of several European civil wars with integrated expertise on Russian, Finnish, Irish, Spanish and Greek cases. This study will challenge exceptionalist approaches to civil war, arguing that they can only be fully understood as a phenomenon within a pan-European context. 

The Art of Reconciliation

Funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, this project examined how Arts practitioners, funders, community activists, educationalists use art forms as methods of peace-building when responding to political conflict, taking Northern Ireland as a case study. 

DIASPORA

ERC-funded project investigating intersections between alcohol, drug use, mental health, migration and ethnicity, with a focus on Irish migrants in post-war London and New York. The project will interrogate the cultural and societal implications of the ‘drunken Irish’ label and disproportionate rates of alcoholism reported, tracing the interplay between expert, State, religious and cultural representations.

Talk4Peace

Exploring transformative mediation as a mechanism for inclusive dialogue in peace-building on the island of Ireland. This inclusive research process involves extensive cross-border dialogue and examines the role of innovative tools used to maximise inclusion and outreach in mediation practices, including arts and cultural practices.

Youth Engagement in European Language Preservation, 1900-2020

UCD-led ERC project to preserve and protect historical regional languages. The project focuses on youth involvement in language preservation of three minority languages (Irish, Welsh and Catalan) through educational, historical, and literary approaches, while also engaging with youths themselves.

SOS

ERC-funded project investigating the history of boat refugees since the 1940s. Through study of archives, media coverage and interviews, this study will produce the first global history of boat refugees, examining the influence of ethnicity, class, gender, religion, sexuality and capital. 

Post-extractivist legacies and landscapes

Based on a partnership between UCD Humanities, Earth and Discovery Institutes, MoLI, and centres, schools and institutes in Estonia, South Africa, Australia, and the US, this project is leads a two-year Andrew W. Mellon-funded Global Humanities Institute 2023, exploring interactions between creative arts practices and local activism in the transition from mining to post-mining. 

SouthHem

ERC funded study examining the relationship between settler and indigenous literary cultures in the British-controlled Southern Hemisphere and Straits Settlements from 1780-1870. The literatures considered include writing in English, translations into English, transcriptions, and writing in languages of origin. 

Drinking Cultures

Wellcome-Trust funded project investigating the cultural reception of medical developments related to alcohol in Ireland, 1700-1900. The cultural context of Irish people being perceived as excessively fond of alcohol during this period of British rule, meant that new alcohol-related medical frameworks became implicated in an existing socially biased and politically-charged discourse. This is the first large-scale examination of the cultural side of this medico-cultural interrelation.

UCD Centre for Cultural Analytics

A coherent research ecosystem for the digital humanities, supporting ongoing collaboration, hosting international networks and incubating new projects. 

UCD Humanities Institute

Showcasing the distinctive interdisciplinary research in the humanities at UCD, providing a laboratory for the study of culture and the human experience.

UCD Centre for War Studies

Interdisciplinary academic research centre aiming to develop new research projects in partnership with other research institutions around the globe. Building upon existing research interests of staff members in the schools of History, Sociology, and Politics, it also serves as a forum for graduate students and early career researchers working on the history of war and interpersonal violence. 

UCD Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland

Based in the UCD School of History, the inter-disciplinary research centre is dedicated to the study of the medical humanities and relates to the College of Arts and Humanities embedded theme of Culture, Society and Change. Current research expertise and projects focus on psychiatry and mental health, medical professions and practices, public health and disease, maternal and child welfare and sexual health. 

Prof Emilie Pine Communicating the legacy of child abuse and helping victims heal

UCD-NYU Report on next generation of Irish in the US informed Government diaspora policy

Dr Kelly Fitzgerald Housing memories: the Dublin Tenements’ Museum

Assoc Prof Emily Mark Fitzgerald Remembering and commemorating the Irish Famine

Poetry as Commemoration project builds understanding of our shared past across the island

Multifaceted research project influences public debate on the mental health crisis in prisons

UNESCO recognises world significance of National Folklore Collection

UCD collaboration with the National Library of Ireland established first Museum of Literature in Ireland

Prof Robert Gerwarth

Director of the UCD Centre for War Studies and author of several acclaimed history books, he is a world expert on the history of German and Central European political culture 1871-1945.

Dr Kelly Fitzgerald

Head of UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, specialises in the intellectual history and development of Irish folkloristics and archives amongst other aspects of folklore studies and oral history.

Dr Conor Mulvagh

Lecturer in Irish History with special responsibility for the decade of centenaries, research centres primarily on British and Irish political history, particularly during the decade of the Irish revolution and the First World War.

Dr Ríona Nic Congáil

Assistant Professor at UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, specialist in the Revivalist Period, the History of Childhood, Irish-Language Literature and Minority Language Studies. 

Prof Diarmaid Ferriter

Full Professor of Modern Irish History, specialist in the social, cultural and political history of twentieth century Ireland, broadcaster and Irish Times contributor.

Dr Alice Mauger

Historian of medicine and modern Irish history, with a focus on psychiatry, addiction, alcohol and drugs, PI of DIASPORA.

Prof Liam Kennedy

Chair in American Studies and Director of the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies, speciality in American cultural and media studies, political communications, and Irish-US relations, co-founder and editor of America Unfiltered.

Prof Anne Fuchs

Co-founder and Director of UCD Humanities Institute, PI of Wellcome Trust-funded project 'Framing Ageing: A Clinical, Cultural, and Social Dialogue' and ‘Post-extractivist legacies and landscapes: Humanities, artistic and activist responses’. 

Dr Irial Glynn

Expert in migration history with a research focuses on the period after 1945. PI of the SOS project, co-editor of the History Hub, worked with the Irish Refugee Council.