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Dr Gillian O'Brien

Humanities and Social Science

Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies

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Gillian O'Brien is Professor of Public History

She is the author of 'The Darkness Echoing: Exploring Ireland's Places of Famine, Death and Rebellion', (Doubleday, 2020) (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1118145/the-darkness-echoing/9781781620502.html) and "Blood Runs Green: The Murder that Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago" (University of Chicago Press, 2015) (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo19966410.html). She is also the editor (with Finola O'Kane) of 'Georgian Dublin' and 'Portraits of the City: Dublin and the Wider World' and has also published work on the history of Irish convents, Irish republicanism, newspaper and journalism history, the history of Primary Education in Ireland. Her BA and MA are from University College Dublin and her PhD from the University of Liverpool.

She is currently working on a number of projects including books on the Irish in America from the Civil War to the turn of the twentieth century and on Crime and Dark Tourism in Ireland. She is also involved in a collaborative study with Jessie Castle (an architectural historian and Visiting Research Fellow at LJMU) on an architectural and social history of convents in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland. In addition she is interested in the history of women journalists in America and representations of the Irish in the illustrations of Thomas Nast. Gillian is also involved in a number of public history projects and has been the historical advisor for museum and heritage scheme including the development of Spike Island in Co. Cork, Ireland and work on Kilmainham Gaol and Courthouse in Co. Dublin and Nano Nagle Place in Cork city. As part of her work on museums and heritage centres she has published 'Inception, Development, Operation: A Report on Best Practice for Site-Specific Museums and Heritage Centres' (2018) and 'Beyond Storytelling: Exhibiting the Past (2020)

Gillian is the Programme Leader for the MA in Modern History and module leader for 'Ireland 1690-1922'; 'Celebration and Commemoration in Irish History' and 'Revolutionary Traditions in Ireland'

Gillian would welcome proposals from potential postgraduate students on topics including: eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland; the history of religious orders in Ireland; Irish-America; newspaper history; history of memory and commemoration, 'Dark Tourism' among other topics.

Gillian can be found on twitter: @gillianmobrien or via her website gillianobrien.net

Degrees

University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, PhD
University College Dublin, Ireland, MA
Univerity College Dublin, Ireland, BA

Academic appointments

Professor of Public History, History, Liverpool John Moores University, 2023 - present
Reader in Modern Irish History, History, Liverpool John Moores University, 2015 - 2023

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