Principal Investigator
Dr Frances Nolan
Dr Frances Nolan specialises in the history of women and gender in early modern Ireland, Britain and Europe, with a primary focus on Irish women’s property ownership. Supported by an IRC Postgraduate Scholarship, she completed a doctoral thesis on women’s property ownership in the Williamite Confiscation at UCD in 2016. She was awarded an IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018-2020) for a project titled ‘The cat’s paw: Jacobite Irishwomen, 1688-1718’. The Fellowship was undertaken at Maynooth University under the mentorship of Professor Marian Lyons. Dr Nolan’s first monograph, The Jacobite duchess: Frances Jennings, duchess of Tyrconnell, was published by Boydell & Brewer in 2021. She has also published articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Irish Historical Studies and The Historical Journal, and served as guest co-editor of the IHS Special Issue, ‘A new agenda for women’s and gender history in Ireland’ (Nov. 2022). With Professor C.I. McGrath, she is co-editing a modern edition of A list of the claims ent[e]red with the trustees at Chichester House for the Irish Manuscripts Commission. Dr Nolan also has extensive experience as a freelance researcher and consultant historian and has worked on projects for the Royal Irish Academy, Irish Manuscripts Commission (Sources for Irish Women’s History Project), Environmental Protection Agency, Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee, InQuest Research Group, RTÉ, Lansdowne Rugby Club and the Irish Dental Association. With Dr Eoin Kinsella, she co-authored The Irish Dental Association: a centenary history (Eastwood/Wordwell, 2023). She has also authored a forthcoming history of National Hunt racing in Ireland.
PhD Student
Eoghan Fitzgerald
Eoghan Fitzgerald completed a Master of Arts in History at the University of Limerick in 2021-2, under the supervision of Dr David Fleming. His dissertation focused on the material culture of the eighteenth-century Irish Volunteers. Prior to this, Eoghan received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Limerick. Eoghan’s doctoral research focuses on the roles and of women in the Registry of Deeds between 1708 and 1800.
Digital Humanities Consultant
Niall O’Leary
Niall O’Leary is an IT consultant, developer and trainer working in the Higher Education sector, with particular strengths in Digital Humanities. Through his work managing many large-scale national and international projects, he has developed a wide-ranging skill-set encompassing everything from databases to geo-spatial mapping, online systems to XML encoding. He is frequently called upon to create innovative solutions quickly, having particular strengths in analysis, project management and institutional relations. Espousing a philosophy of open source development, he has a comprehensive understanding of internationally recognised data standards and formats such as Dublin Core, EAD, TEI, etc.. He is as comfortable in an academic environment as an industrial one and brings the same rigour to his work in all areas.