Irish Studies - Structured

Course Overview

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.



Applications are welcome in all aspects of Irish Studies but projects are particularly welcome in the following areas: bilingual and comparative studies of modern and contemporary Irish writing; the politics and practice of translation; historical cartography, colonial and imperial geographies; traditional Irish music and dance.



It is a requirement of all PhD/MLitt candidates at the Centre for Irish Studies that they adopt an interdisciplinary approach to their research.

The minimum qualification necessary to be considered for admission to the PhD programme is a high honours, primary degree (or equivalent international qualification), or ’other such evidence as will satisfy the Head of Discipline and the College of his/her fitness’ (University of Galway Calendar). It is more usual, however, for successful applicants to have already gained a Master's degree.

Apply by mid-July for September entry.

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

Areas of interest

Dr. Louis De Paor—Twentieth-century writing in Irish; translation; Máirtín Ó Cadhain; Flann O'Brien; Irish bardic poetry.


Dr. Nessa Cronin—Irish and European historical cartography; cultural geography; philosophies of space and place; twentieth century and contemporary Irish writing.


Dr. Michelle Comber—Archaeology of Irelands early historic period (approx. 5th to 12th century A.D.), especially its fine metalwork, economy, and settlement; ring forts and settlement economy.