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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

3. After putting together a conference programme a SAH emailed me to tell me that i had used far too much bold type. Naturally I radically revised how much bold type I dared to use in any subsequent conference schedules. This one is worthy of a direct quote. Truly heroic pointless pedantry.

Email excerpt reads: A small, or not so small, matter I should like to take up with you is your use of lots of bold type in the programme you have sent as an attachment for printing out. There is more bold than anything else. Quite apart from the consideration that it uses two or times the amount of costly black ink, it is so overwhelming that it makes the text less easy to read. Another way to draw attention to words is to use italics. Also it makes it easier on the eye to leave more 'body' between the lines.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

And a cover to end all covers, by Paul Henry. This was the painting the French government bought at the exhib as a tacit recognition of the free state in early 1922. So it was the perfect cover for the book. To see a recreation of the exhibition in Paris see www.seeingIreland.ie

Paul Henry, Village dans l’ouest de l’Irlande (A West of Ireland Village), oil on canvas, 66 x 82 cm,

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

There are contributions from some of the most brilliant 🇮🇪 art historians working today, @katymilligan.bsky.social , Angela Griffith, Roisin Kennedy. A virtuoso foreword from Joe Cleary. And some spectacular reproductions of artwork throughout. Some favourites below.

Grace Henry (1868–1953), Mallaranny, ca. 1918, oil on canvas, 71 x 56 cm. Location unknown, photograph in private collection.

Susan Mary (“Lily”) Yeats (1866–1949), The Moon, silk embroidery on blue poplin ground, 24 x 36 cm. Private Collection.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

The political side of things had big pre-Civil War vibes... a chapter by @dgannon2016.bsky.social helps to explain the political theatre of 1922 in Paris, and this remarkable gathering of the new elite. They bickered and ignored each other and nothing was solved.

Irish delegates in Paris, January 1922: Katherine Hughes, Mary MacSwiney, Éamon de Valera, Countess Markievicz, Thomas Hughes Kelly, and Seán T. O’Kelly. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The Irish Race Congress in session at the Hotel Continental, Paris, January 1922. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Today is publication day for this beautiful book. Inspiration for it came from seeing @billyshortall.bsky.social talk about his brilliant PhD research at the IHSA in @tlrhub.bsky.social in 2017. One of those joyful collaborations that come along sometimes in academia. Cover is a Paul Henry painting

An image shoeing the cover of a new book, Seeing Ireland: Art, Culture, and Power in Modern Ireland (UND Press, 2026), with a blurb quote by Diarmuid Ó Giolláin calling it a 'highly original contribution to the study of Irish Art.'

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Really enjoyed this book by Molly-Claire Gillett on the history of Irish lacemaking. I reviewed it for EHR, but the review is basically me saying how much I liked it.

A cover of a beautiful book, written by Molly-Claire Gillett, titled Irish Lacemaking: Art, Industry, and Cultural Practice (Bloomsbury, 2025)

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Castle Daly in Galway, one of the properties we discuss, is one of the more spectacular ruins in Ireland connected to slavery. But there are plenty more.

Photo of the facade of Castle Daly in Galway, in ruins.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Do go along to the launch of Antonia Hart's new monograph, The Commercial Lives of Irish Women, 1850-1922 (LUP). It is a brilliant piece of work, beautifully written, and well worth reading. Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street Thursday, 4th December | 7pm

Launch Details - The Commercial Lives of Irish Women, 1850-1922
Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street
Thursday, 4th December | 7pm

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

I often pass this kitsch masterpiece on Parnell st as I walk to work.

A mass produced plaster cast representation of Irish revolutionary hero Michael Collins, sitting in a shop window on Parnell Street, Dublin 1.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Cracking new book by a former undergrad of ours @historytcd.bsky.social, Shane Lynn, on global Irish nationalism and the South African war. Published by the excellent Irish diaspora series @gihnyu.bsky.social. Beautifully written.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Olusegun is a Visiting Research Fellow with us @historytcd.bsky.social and he is giving a talk for Africa day @ria.ie on the long history of African Studies in Ireland. 26th May 2025 at 1.30-4pm. Looks great, and all are welcome.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

How lovely. When I first came to work at Trinity the college didn’t allow the students to lounge around on the grass like this. That was a bit silly, wasn’t it.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Next week, through the magic of the internet, I'll appear simultaneously at the Uni of Texas (Austin) as part of their Second Books Series, at 11am local time, and at 5pm Irish time. I'll talk about my new book, and I'll also talk about the (sometimes tortuous) process of writing it. Join us!

The Program in British, Irish, and Empire Studies (BIES) at the University of Texas at Austin invites you to the final talk in the Second Books series: Ciaran O'Neill (Trinity College Dublin):
Power and Powerlessness in Union Ireland: Life in a Palliative State
Ciaran O'Neill (Trinity College Dublin)
Wednesday, April 2 at 11:00 am CT / 5:00 p.m. IST (UTC +1)
Zoom Registration required: https://utexas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMuc--hrT4tGtXpLQ5459tCOzdufmxsAup-

The Second Books series host virtual sessions with the authors of new academic monographs. Please join us to hear about these extraordinary books as well as the stages of creation and development that brought these authors' second monographs into print. This event is free and open to the public.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Greatly enjoying reading the fruits of Walter Guinness’s late career ‘gap yah’ cruising around the Atlantic looking for ‘pure blood Eskimos’, ‘collecting’ cultural artefacts, and capturing exotic animals. When you are a very rich, very bored gazillionaire you can do this sort of thing.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

A bittersweet feeling receiving this beautiful book, edited by @fionnualawalsh.bsky.social. The contributors were asked by the late David Fitzpatrick to complete a companion vol for his project on the Americanisation of Ireland, so it is a second goodbye to a brilliant colleague. One for the guild.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Many thanks to the Irish Times for reviewing my recent book. We’re lucky that a national newspaper makes space for academic books in their review pages. Power and Powerlessness in Union Ireland www.irishtimes.com/culture/book... Library link: academic.oup.com/book/58980

This is a discount voucher for Power and powerlessness in union Ireland: a book that was reviewed in The Irish Times

This is a photograph of a review of powerlessness in Ireland, in today’s Irish times

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

My colleague @speakerconolly.bsky.social dug up some newspaper coverage of it. Content warning for racial slurs.

A newspaper report from 1926 describing the Trinity student rag event

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

The Reappraisals in Irish History series I edit for LUP (with Enda Delaney and Maria Luddy) has now produced 21 brilliant volumes on modern Irish history and culture since 2012. We offer ECR authors a little extra in the way of review and support and hope that it pays dividends for them in the end.

A photo of 20 History monographs in the Reappraisals in Irish history series, produced by Liverpool University press, and edited by Enda Delaney, Maria Luddy, and Ciaran O’Neill. The series is managed by Christabel Scaife and welcomes proposals from anyone working on Irish history and culture side 1750

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

8/ Lady Dover had herself been widowed 10 years previously and had two teenage boys of her own, but this was where the comparison ended between herself and Peggy. Lady Dover had married George Agar-Ellis,who owned 5,000 acres in Northampton and another 1,100 in Oxford.

Georgiana (Howard), Lady Dover by Samuel William Reynolds,
1824—NPG D35378 © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

6/ On Saturday, January 7, 1843, a tall young woman in a blue cloak appeared at Lambeth Police Court in London, attracting the attention of the court reporters. Peggy Keating, a widow, had been evicted from her four-acre dwelling in Kilkenny by an agent acting for her absentee landlady, Lady Dover.

A newspaper article entitled ‘Absentee Landlords and Irish Agents’, published in the Freeman’s Journal, 12 January 1843.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

5/ The book opens with the military road, bisecting the Wicklow mountains, and it ends with a bunch of fishermen complaining about the collapsing price of lobsters post-independence. Let me focus on just one story of many: that of Peggy Keating.

A painting of the Wicklow Military Road by Thomas Sautelle Roberts, The Military Roads of County Wicklow, British
Library, Maps, K. Top.55.45.g

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

My book Power and Powerlessness in Union Ireland: Life in a Palliative State (OUP, 2024) was just published online. It is ludicrously expensive, so let me explain the basic premise of the book. If interested, please encourage your local/univ library to buy a copy. academic.oup.com/book/58980 🧵

The front cover of a new book, 'Power and Powerlessness in Union Ireland: Life in a Palliative State' by Ciaran O'Neill, and published by Oxford University Press.

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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Needed to rethink a lecture on race in modern Ireland this term and these are some of the books that helped me enormously. It’s a really vibrant area at the moment.

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