I have taught a wide range of courses on 19th and 20th century Irish history, and specialist modules on the history of poverty, welfare and public health, and the global history of suicide. At the moment I teach a module on 'Institutions and public history in Ireland and beyond' as part of the M.Phil. in Public History and Cultural Heritage, and I contribute to the Core Module on the M.Phil. in Public History, 'Remembering, reminding and forgetting: public history, cultural heritage'. I also contribute to modules on the M.Phil in Irish History. I welcome research students interested in the social history of 19th and 20th century Ireland, the history of institutions and public history.

I am an Irish historian focused largely on social history, in particular the history of suicide, death and poverty in nineteenth and twentieth century Ireland. I am fascinated by how the state acquired knowledge about its citizens in the nineteenth century and used that information to construct massive amounts of data about mortality, disease and welfare during the period up to the foundation of the Irish Free State. I am also interested in the history of institutions, including workhouses, psychiatric hospitals, prisons and Magdalen asylums. Before coming to Trinity College I worked at Queen’s University in Belfast and Oxford Brookes University on two research projects related to the history of the Irish Poor Law. Prior to that I worked at the University of Limerick on a project exploring the medicalisation of maternity through general and psychiatric hospital records in early 20th century Ireland. I received my Ph.D. from NUI Maynooth in 2005. Part of my job involves working with the Glasnevin Trust at Glasnevin Cemetery and Museum developing their public history, education and research activities.