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I am an historian of twentieth and twenty-first century Irish history with a particular interest in political and military history. My research focuses on exploring how politicians and political parties campaigned and propagandized in elections in Ireland just before the foundation of the Free State and for a short period afterwards. I am particularly interested in how electioneering was conducted in an era of political and military upheaval in Ireland, i.e. during the revolutionary years, and in the legacy of the same on the Free State and Northern Ireland. My work stems from a broader interest in the nature of the two states in Ireland during a time of internal and global conflict, and in placing the Irish experience in a wider context. I am also interested in women’s history in the late twentieth and twenty-first century and local/regional history. A range of primary source material is used in my research which includes contemporary newspapers, military witness statements and pension records, the special collections of politicians, ephemera collections and census data. Expected research outputs include conference papers, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, reviews and a monograph.
I am a member of the Irish Association of Professional Historians and the Women’s History Association of Ireland.
Sole authored monograph
Electioneering and Propaganda in Ireland 1918-1921: Votes, Violence & Victory (Dublin: Four courts Press, 2020). [Forthcoming].
Peer-reviewed book chapters
‘The Mood of the nation: Ireland’s response to Redmond’s call to war in 1914 as reported in the regional press’, in The Irish regional press, 1892-2012: changing media in a changing country, ed. by Ian Kenneally and James T. O’Donnell (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018), pp.
‘Voting to maintain the Union in 1918: ‘the strongest pillars upon which they stood’, Southern Irish Loyalism, 1912-1948, ed. byBrian Hughes & Connor Morrissey, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020) [Forthcoming].
Book Reviews
2018: Irish Historical Studies Journal, reviewing a selection of the Maynooth local studies which deal with the revolutionary period.
2017: Review of the new batch of five Maynooth Local History pamphlets Family & Country History, ed by Steve King being published later this year.
September 2016: Review of 1916 The Church & The Rising, edited by Greg Daly, published by The Irish Catholic (Dublin, 2016) for The Furrow.
Seminar and Conference Papers
2019: Economic & Social History Society of Ireland Conference: ‘Money is coming in with dreadful slowness’: the economics of electioneering to win votes in 1918 Ireland
2019: Irish Humanities Alliance Border Heritages Conference: ‘Partition Propaganda during Election Campaigns 1918-1921.
2019: Louth Festival of History: ‘1919, the First Dáil and the National Scene’.
2019: Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class (NUIG): ‘Labour and the 1918 General Election’.
2019: Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland Conference: ‘Newspapers are the principal conveyance for Propaganda …’: Exploiting the press to win votes, 1918-1921.
2019: Westmeath Archaeologial and Historical Society, Fourth Annual Conference titled The Struggle for Independence – Ireland and Westmeath in 1919: The First Dáil and constitutional politics in Westmeath.
2018: National Museum of Ireland ‘Deeds not Words? Assessing a Century of Change’ Conference: ‘The Two Irelands, Facts not Fiction: Campaigns and Consequences’
2018: Trinity College Dublin, Contemporary Irish History Seminar: ‘Put him in to get him out, Electioneering and Propaganda in 1918’.
2018: Kilkenny Archaeological Society Bradley Conference: ‘The women’s vote is a new factor in the election campaign’: the powerful influence of the female vote in 1918.
2016: Carlow College, St. Patrick’s, Conference on Conflict, Migration and Identity in Modern Ireland: Global and Transnational Perspectives: ‘New Votes, Absent Voices: The Propaganda of Conflict and the Effect of Migration on the 1918 General Election’.
2016: Women’s History Association of Ireland Conference in Boston College: ‘Campaigns &
Consequences: Women & Elections 1918-1920’.
Media Interactions
December 2019: RTE, The History Show with Myles Dungan: Panel with Elaine Callinan, Diarmaid Ferritter and Mary Muldowney discussing 1918 General Election.
January 2019: RTE, The History Show with Myles Dungan and with fellow interviewee David Farrell on the topic of the Single Transferable Vote.
May 2019: Northern Visions TV, Belfast, History Now hosted by Barry Shepherd. Panel: Dr Elaine Callinan and Dr Martin O’Donoghue on the topic of elections in Ireland in the early 1920s.
Newspaper articles
Irish Independent, 2 December 2018 titled ‘A Forgotten History’.
Irish Times, 14 December: ‘Sinn Féin landslide in 1918 not quite what it seemed’.
Carlow Nationalist on Decade of Commemoration 1913-1923 series of articles on Ireland’s Revolutionary era
Other non-refereed publications
2016: Carloviana Journal, publication of Carlow Historical Society.  Article ‘The 1641 Rebellion in Carlow: Causes and Consequences’.
2018: Carloviana, ‘The 1918 General Election’.
Conference organisation
2015: Carlow College, Great War Memorabilia Day.
2016: Carlow College, Decade of Commemorations Memorabilia Day.
Research-related outreach/public events
2017 & 2018: Public evening classes in Carlow College on Local History and Ireland, Revolution to Republic.
Other research relevant outputs
2018: Launch of book Michael Governey, 1852-1924, by Eugene Carbery
2016: Launch of Carlow Historical Society Journal, Carloviana.
