Roundtable

MEL FARRELL

Dr Mel Farrell is a former Irish Research Council (IRC) funded Government of Ireland scholar, 2009-12 with expertise in the Irish Revolution, 1912-22, the Irish Free State 1922-37, and decolonisation in southern Africa. He is the author of one monograph, Party Politics in a New Democracy: the Irish Free State, 1922-37 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), three book chapters and five peer-reviewed journal articles (published in Parliamentary History, Éire-Ireland and New Hibernia Review. He has taught history in DCU, Maynooth University and UCD, and is currently serving as a Lecturer in Irish History at Carlow College.

MARTIN MANSERGH

Dr Martin Mansergh was a T.D. for Tipperary South from 2007 to 2011, and Minister of State for OPW and the Arts between 2008 and 2011. He was a member of the Council of State from 2004 to 2011. He was a Senator from 2002 to 2007, and prior to that was NI Special Adviser to three Taoisigh, having been a diplomat.

He was co-recipient of the 1994 Tipperary Peace Prize with Fr Alex Reid and Rev. Roy Magee. He is author of The Legacy of History for Making Peace in Ireland (2003) and was an Irish Times columnist from 2003-2006. In 2018, he was elected member of the Royal Irish Academy.

DAVID MCCULLAGH

Dr David McCullagh is a journalist and author. He currently presents the Six One News on RTÉ Television. He has written five books, including a two-volume biography of Éamon de Valera, Rise 1882-1932 and Rule: 1932-1975 and, most recently, a book for children, The Great Irish Politics Book.

MARY MCAULIFFE

Dr Mary McAuliffe is a historian and Director of the Gender Studies Programme at UCD. She holds a PhD from the School of History and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin. Her latest publications include, as co-editor with Miriam Haughton and Emilie Pine, Legacies of the Magdalen Laundries; Commemoration, Gender, and the Postcolonial Carceral State, and as sole author, Margaret Skinnider: a biography. She was co-editor of Sexual Politics in Modern Ireland and, with Bridget McAuliffe and Owen O’Shea, Kerry 1916: Histories and Legacies of the Easter Rising. She is currently working on a book on gendered and sexual violence during the Irish revolutionary period, 1919-1923, to be published in late 2023. She is a past President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland and is currently a member of the Humanities Institute, UCD.

CIARA MEEHAN

Dr Ciara Meehan is Reader in History and an Associate Dean at the University of Hertfordshire. She has published widely on the social and political transformation of independent Ireland. Her books include The Cosgrave Party: a History of Cumann na nGaedheal, A Just Society for Ireland? 1964-1987 and a history of Fine Gael, which she co-authored with Stephen Collins.

OWEN O’SHEA

From Milltown, Co. Kerry, Owen O’Shea is a historian and author of several books on history and politics in his native county. A former press adviser to the Labour Party and a journalist for many years, he is the author of No Middle Path: The Civil War in Kerry (Merrion Press, 2022). Other books include Ballymacandy: the Story of a Kerry Ambush (Merrion Press, 2021) and Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry’s Political Dynasties (O’Brien Press, 2011) and, as co-author with Gordon Revington, A Century of Politics in the Kingdom: A County Kerry Compendium (Merrion Press, 2018). He was co-editor of a history of Kerry and the Easter Rising in 2016 with Bridget McAuliffe and Dr Mary McAuliffe.

He works as Media, Communications and Customer Relations Officer with Kerry County Council and is an Irish Research Council-funded PhD student at University College Dublin, researching electioneering and politics in Kerry in the decade after the Civil War. See www.owenoshea.ie