History - Structured

As part of the doctoral training available on the Structured PhD programme, students avail themselves of a range of interdisciplinary taught modules. The wide menu of available options include modules that:

-are discipline-specific in that they augment the student’s existing knowledge in their specialist area

-are dissertation-specific in that they supply core skills which are essential to completion of the research project, e.g., additional language skills

-acknowledge a student’s professional development e.g. presentation of a paper at an international conference

-enhance a student’s employability through generic training, e.g., careers workshops, computer literacy.



Each student will be assigned a primary Supervisor(s) and a Graduate Research Committee made up of experienced researchers to plan their programme of study and to provide on-going support to their research.



The Discipline offers supervision in a wide area of historical interests. Admission to a research degree is at the discretion of the potential supervisor and the head of department, and is based on a proposal from the applicant following discussion with the member of staff whose academic area of interest is most appropriate. Candidates should have obtained an honours degree in History (Second Class Honours, Grade 1 minimum), and for the PhD, would usually already hold a Master’s degree.

Admission to a research degree is at the discretion of the potential supervisor and the head of department, and is based on a proposal from the applicant following discussion with the member of staff whose academic area of interest is most appropriate. Candidates should have obtained an honours degree in History (Second Class Honours, Grade 1 [or equivalent international qualification] minimum), and for the PhD, would usually already hold a Master’s degree.

Important: apply by mid-July for September entry.

Applications are made online via the NUI Galway Postgraduate Applications System.

Areas of interest


Dr. Gearóid Barry: modern and contemporary France, cultural and political history of the first world war in Europe, European pacifism between the world wars, history of religion in modern and contemporary Europe (including popular religiosity), French Catholicism since the Revolution, the origins of Christian Democracy in Europe, Franco-Irish links in the 20th century.


Dr. Sarah-Anne Buckley: Nineteenth and twentieth-century Irish and British social, political, and social policy history; women and gender; institutional histories; welfare history and the history of childhood and the family in Ireland.


Dr. Caitríona Clear: history of women; social history of Ireland and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.


Dr. John Cunningham: modern Ireland; labour history; local history; urban history; dynamics of social protest.


Dr. Enrico Dal Lago: U.S. social and political history, especially the 19th century; American slavery in comparative perspective; native North Americans, especially the Plains Tribes.


Prof. Steven Ellis: British and Irish history, 15th to 17th century; historiography; early modern Europe.


Dr. Alison Forrestal: early Modern Europe, particularly 17thcentury France; history of religion, particularly early modern Catholic culture and society; 17th-century Ireland.


Dr. Mary Harris: Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries with particular reference to Church-State relations and Northern Ireland; Colonial Spanish America.


Dr. Róisín Healy: modern German history; history of religion; 19th- and 20th-century European Social History.


Dr. Kimberly LoPrete: social, political, and cultural history of Medieval Europe, in particular the 11th-12th centuries and France; women in medieval society, notably aristocratic women; gender and lordship; the first crusade and the history of crusading; Europeans encounters with non-Europeans and travels in Asia; medieval historical writing and uses of the pastin the middle ages; manuscript studies, including palaeography, codicology,and the transmission of texts.


Dr. Niall Ó Ciosáin: social history of Ireland and Europe, 17th–19th century


Prof. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín: Ireland, Britain, and Europe during the early middle ages; computistics; medieval Latin palaeography; Irish traditional music and song.


Dr Kevin O Sullivan: International History; the history of decolonisation; the social, cultural and political legacies of imperialism in Europe; humanitarianism; NGOs; globalisation; contemporary Irish history in a global context.