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Personal Profile For Dr Brian Griffin
Senior Lecturer: History. School of Humanities and Cultural Industries.
BA(Hons) [NUI Maynooth (1982)], MA [NUI Maynooth (1983)], PhD [Loyola University of Chicago (1991)].
Personal Statement:
I have been at Bath Spa since 1995, having previously worked at NUI Maynooth, Loyola University of Chicago, Queen's University Belfast and a publishing company in Dublin, H.W. Wilson.
I am module coordinator for the following undergraduate modules: Conquest, Famine and Cultural Revival in Ireland; Age of the People; Sport and the Modern World, c.1860-c.1980; Perspectives on War;The Great War: Conflict and Society; A Troubled History: Northern Ireland since 1922, as well as contributing to a number of other modules. On the MA in Irish Studies programme I am module coordinator for the following modules: Colonial Ireland: Cromwell to Tone; Writing Ireland: Literature and Society in the Nineteenth Century and Irish Writing: Politics and Place, and I am also coordinator of the Irish Studies Centre.
My research interests include police and crime in nineteenth-century Ireland; phrenology in Ireland; Irish cycling history, 1860s-1900s; Irish military history; Punch and post-Famine Ireland; archery in nineteenth-century Ireland; the history of Meath; anti-Catholicism in nineteenth-century Bath; and Fenianism.
My main non-academic pursuits are following the fortunes of Everton and Bath City football clubs. Nis satis nisi optimum.
Professional Qualifications:
BA (Hons) NUI Maynooth 1982
MA NUI Maynooth 1983
Ph.D. Loyola University of Chicago 1991
Title of Ph.D. dissertation: 'The Irish Police, 1836-1914: A Social History'
Membership of Professional Bodies/Subject Associations:
Member of:
Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland.
British Association for Irish Studies.
British Society for Sports History.
Economic and Social History Society of Ireland
Meath Archaeological and Historical Society
Teaching Specialism:
Irish Literature
Irish Social and Political History
Modern Europe
Key Publications/Exhibitions/Performances:
Monographs:
Cycling in Victorian Ireland (Dublin: Nonsuch Press, 2006)
Sources for the Study of Crime in Ireland, 1801-1921 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005)
The Bulkies: Police and Crime in Belfast, 1800-1865 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1997)
Edited collections:
New Voices in Irish Studies: Essays on History and Literature (Bath: Bath Spa University Presses, 2009)
Articles in edited collections:
'Prevention and Detection of Crime in Nineteenth-Century Ireland', in Norma M. Dawson (ed), Reflections on Law and History (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006), pp 99-125
'The Revival at Local Level: Katherine Frances Purdon's Portrayal of Rural Ireland', in Betsey Taylor FitzSimon and James H. Murphy (eds), The Irish Revival Reappraised (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), pp 175-186
'Irish Identity and the Crimean War', in Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton (eds), War: Identities in Conflict 1300-2000 (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), pp 113-124
'The Irish Police: Love, Sex and Marriage in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', in Margaret Kelleher and James H. Murphy (eds), Gender in Nineteenth Century Ireland: Public and Private Spheres (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1997), pp 168-178
'Religion and Opportunity in the Irish Police Forces, 1836-1914', in R.V. Comerford, Mary Cullen, J.R. Hill and Colm Lennon (eds), Conflict and Coexistence in Ireland: Essays presented to Monsignor Patrick J. Corish (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1990), pp 219-234
Articles in Journals:
'The Romance of the Wheel: Cycling, Fiction and late Nineteenth-Century Ireland', Sport in History, vol. 29, no. 2 (June 2009), pp 277-295 (special issue on Sport and Literature)
'The Fenians in Ulster, 1858-1867', The Irish Sword, vol. xxv, no. 101 (Summer 2007), pp 281-310
'Cycling and Gender in Victorian Ireland', Eire-Ireland, vol. xli, numbers 1 and 2 (Spring/Summer 2006), pp 213-241 (special issue on Gender and Ireland)
'A Forgotten Meath Author: Katherine Frances Purdon', Riocht na Midhe, vol. xvi (2005), pp 142-169
'The Early History of Cycling in Meath and Drogheda', Riocht na Midhe, vol. xv (2004), pp 123-151
'An Irishman's Proposal for Aerial Bombing during the Crimean War', The Irish Sword, vol. xxii, no. 90 (Winter 2001), pp 427-431
'Ireland and the Crimean War', The Irish Sword, vol. xxii, no. 89 (Summer 2001), pp 281-312
'"Some Intriguing Parson, Who Wishes to Attract Attention": Reverend Richard Ryan', Riocht na Midhe, vol. xi (2000), pp 106-123
'A Force Divided: Policing Ireland, 1900-1960', History Today, vol. 49, no. 10 (October 1999), pp 25-31
'"Scallions, Pikes and Bog Oak Ornaments": The Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Chicago Fenian Fair, 1864', Studia Hibernica, no. 29 (1995-1997), pp 85-97
'"Such Varmint": The Dublin Police and the Public, 1838-1913', Irish Studies Review, no. 13 (Winter 1995), pp 21-25; reprinted in Sarah Briggs, Paul Hyland and Neil Sammells (eds), Reviewing Ireland: Essays and Interviews from Irish Studies Review (Bath: Sulis Press, 1998), pp 57-65
'An Agrarian Murder and Evictions in Rathcore', Riocht na Midhe, vol. ix, no. 1 (1994-1995), pp 88-103
'"Mad Dogs and Irishmen": Dogs and Rabies in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', Ulster Folklife (1994), pp 1-15
'Social Aspects of Fenianism in Leinster and Connacht, 1858-1870', Eire-Ireland, vol. xxi, no. 1 (Spring 1986), pp 16-39
Contributions to encyclopaedias etc:
'Luby, Thomas Clarke', in H.G.C. Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp 659-660
Entries on the Irish army, Royal Irish Constabulary, and policing in Ireland, in Lelia Ruckenstein and James A. O'Malley (eds), Everything Irish: The History, Literature, Art, Music, People, and Places of Ireland from A-Z (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003)
Entries on Dublin Metropolitan Police, Royal Irish Constabulary, James Stephens, Thomas Clarke Luby, and Irish involvement in the Crimean War in Brian Lalor (ed), The Encyclopaedia of Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2003)
'Gaelic Culture', in Sally Mitchell (ed), Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988), pp 317-318
National Conferences organised:
First Annual Postgraduate Irish Studies in Britain conference, Bath Spa University, 12 November 2005
Second Annual Postgraduate Irish Studies in Britain conference, Bath Spa University, 18 November 2006
Third Annual Postgraduate Irish Studies in Britain conference, 17 November 2007
Current Scholarship:
Article on cycling clubs in Victorian Ireland
Article on cycling races in nineteenth-century Ireland
Article on the nineteenth-century Irish cycling trade
Article on Irish writers and cycling in the late nineteenth century
Edited collection of postgraduate essays in Irish Studies
Ongoing research on phrenology in nineteenth-century Ireland; anti-Catholicism in nineteenth-century Bath; sport in nineteenth-century Ireland; Punch and Ireland, 1850s to the 1920s; John Townsend Trench, Ireland's controversial cycling pioneer; archery in nineteenth-century Ireland
External Examiners:
Member of Irish Studies QAA audit team, St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, February 2001
Member of Celtic Studies QAA audit team, Queen's University Belfast, October 2001
External examiner for Ph.D. thesis, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, September 2007
Other External Roles:
British representative of Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland, 1999-2004
Referee for Economic and Social Research Council, September 2005
Rapporteur for Economic and Social Research Council, June 2008
Reviewer/referee for the following journals: Irish Studies Review, Irish Economic and Social History, Irish Sword, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, Twentieth Century Britain, Reviews in History, Contemporary British History, ICON (journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology), Journal of British Studies, and Lexicography
Recent Professional Updating:
Some recent conference papers:
'Women and the Cycling Boom in Victorian Ireland:Image and Reality', Women, Sport and Leisure, Women's History Network (Midlands Region) conference, University of Worcester, 12 May 2007
'The Devil on Wheels? Cycling's Impact on Nineteenth-Century Ireland', Bath Royal
Literary and Scientific Institution, 28 January 2008
'The Development of Bicycle Racing in Victorian Ireland', Fourth Annual Sports History Ireland conference, Boston College-Ireland, Dublin, 16 February 2008
'An Illusory Freedom? Women and Cycling in Nineteenth-Century Ireland', Irish Lecture Series, Bath Spa University, 20 February 2008
'Irish Cycling Clubs, 1869-1901', Associational Culture in Ireland and the Wider World c.1750-c.1940 conference, NUI Maynooth, 16-18 May 2008
'Punch and the Fenians in the 1860s', The Black Hand of Republicanism: The Fenians and History conference, Queen's University Belfast and University of Ulster, 20-21 June, 2008
Last Updated: 18 May 2010.
This page is created by the above named individual. The views expressed are theirs and are not those of Bath Spa University. BSU is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced.