Dr Niamh Gallagher

Current research interests Dr Niamh Gallagher is a Lecturer at the Faculty of History in modern British and Irish history, and the author of 'Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History' (Bloomsbury, 2019), which won the Royal Historical Society's 2020 Whitfield Prize (the prize is for an original and scholarly work of British or Irish history which is the author’s first solely written history book). She convenes and lectures on a range of courses across the undergraduate and postgraduate year groups focusing predominantly on political and social history. She is currently collaborating with colleagues on a variety of exciting projects and is finishing an article on the morale and the psychology of coping in the First World War. Her next major research project will be on the history of Ireland and slavery from the eighteenth century to the present. She has participated regularly on the media in both Britain and Ireland (see below). Niamh also leads The Mether Initiative at St Catharine's College with Des Browne (The Rt Hon. the Lord Browne of Ladyton), which offers a physical and virtual non-partisan space where future leaders, academics and policymakers can connect and learn from the history of Britain and Ireland in all their varieties.

Biography

Niamh Gallagher comes from Co. Armagh in Northern Ireland. She read Anthropology and Geography at UCL before completing her postgraduate studies at the Faculty of History at Cambridge. Her first book, Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History (Bloomsbury, 2019) is a revisionist history of the Irish in the First World War and is the first work of Irish history to win the Royal Historical Society's 2020 Whitfield Prize since it was established in 1976. The book emerged from Niamh's PhD thesis, which won the St Catharine’s Prize for Distinction in Research when Niamh was a postgraduate student. She is now a University Lecturer in modern British and Irish History at the Faculty of History. At Catz, she was Director of Studies for Part II from 2018-20 and helps to lead the Admissions process for History, History and Modern Languages, and History and Politics. She is also the postgraduate tutor for finance.

Niamh regularly contributes to media and is available for consultancy. Her recent professional activities include:

• Discussant on the Cambridge-led podcast, 'Talking Politics', with David Runciman to discuss the Irish general election (12.02.20)
• Talking head on forthcoming TV documentary, 'The Great Hunger', produced by Tyrone Productions in association with RTE, University College Cork and The Atlas Of The Great Irish Famine (released in November 2020)
• Co-founder of The Mether Initiative at St Catharine's College with Des Browne (The Rt Hon. the Lord Browne of Ladyton). Chaired panel discussion with two former secretaries of state for Northern Ireland, John Reid and Paul Murphy, and the shadow deputy leader of the House of Lords, Angela Smith, to discuss the challenges of delivering the Good Friday Agreement (21.11.19)
• Discussant on Radio 4 show 'In Our Time' hosted by Melvyn Bragg on subject of 'The Great Irish Famine' (04.04.19) alongside Cormac O'Grada and Enda Delaney

Key publications

• Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History (Bloomsbury, 2019). Winner of the Royal Historical Society's 2020 Whitfield Prize.
• N. Gallagher, 'The psychology of coping between 'home' and 'front' in the First World War: religion, combat motivation and morale' (in preparation, 2020-1)
• R. Bourke and N. Gallagher (eds), The Political Thought of the Irish Revolution (in preparation, Cambridge University Press, 2021)
• N. Gallagher, ‘The Irish Question’ in Allen Packwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Winston Churchill, Cambridge: (in preparation, Cambridge University Press, 2021).
• N. Gallagher, 'The Great War and Ireland's Twentieth Century' in Mike Cronin, John Crowley and Cormac Moore (eds.), The Atlas of Irish Sport (University College Cork Press, 2021).