Current Research Projects

GEOGRAPHY

Title: Diaspora Diplomacy and the Migration-Development Nexus

Funder: Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland - Research Ireland Pathway 2024

Short Description: This project examines Ireland’s context of increasing nativist-populist public discourse and Brexit-related territorial questions. Research is urgently needed in this area to better understand how diaspora networks act diplomatically, and to broker geopolitical connections, support development goals and mediate conflict. The project invokes the innovative concept of ‘diaspora diplomacy’ which highlights the longer-term geopolitics of diaspora mobilisation.

The project includes a cross-border study that will highlight the ways that differing citizenship regimes, governance structures and engagement policies interact with diaspora networks - both the Irish abroad and those diasporas that call Ireland home. It will map the diaspora diplomacies of three significant and growing diasporas of postcolonial states (Brazil, India and Algeria), and critically review Ireland’s own diaspora strategy, to identify lessons for domestic as well as foreign policy, improving migration governance and development outcomes globally.

Title: Catchment communities - an interdisciplinary ecosystem for citizen science

PI: Susan Hegarty

Funder: Environmental Protection Agency - EPA Research Call 2024

Short Description: This project aims to create a framework - a set of tools and protocols to ensure the success of citizen science projects - for water quality monitoring which can be rolled out to a national scale. These tools and protocols will be available to the wider community of researchers who use citizen science methodologies, and can be used as a framework for a National Citizen Science Programme for water monitoring.

The project has interdisciplinarity at its core, with analytical science, anthropology, science communications, hydrology, fluvial geomorphology and citizen science integrated to create a project to develop a framework for a national citizen science programme, which includes parameters to understand and influence community practices and local environmental policy.

Title: Minor placenames in Ireland: promoting and facilitating 'citizen humanities' in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage

PI: Jonathan Cherry

CO-I’s: Brian Ó Raghallaigh, Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge

Funder: Irish Research Council - IRC New Foundations 2024

Website: https://doras.dcu.ie/32035/

Short Description:Ireland's minor placenames – given to natural and manmade landscape components, including fields, homesteads, roads, bridges, buildings – reflecting the origins, history, evolution and personality of a particular place are an integral part of our intangible cultural heritage, that strengthens cultural identity and place attachment at individual, group and community levels. Despite significant achievements in the recording of minor placenames, those across large swathes of the country remain hidden in the minds of people, until prompted and provided with a space to share this knowledge.

Working alongside colleagues in DCU Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, a best practice guide and a manual will be produced and a number of workshops convened to promote and facilitate a citizen humanities approach to the collection of minor placenames in Ireland. The existing network of local authority heritage officers will play a pivotal role in promoting this at a local level amongst interested individuals and various community groups.

The project leverages the existing Meitheal Logainm.ie platform, which was designed for the decentralised collection and dissemination of minor placenames. The guides, workshops and networks developed during this project are intended to give momentum to the task of recording minor placenames across the country, in addition to providing opportunities for future research.

Title: A Wasted Transition? Circular economy opportunities for renewable energy infrastructure repair, decommissioning and recovery

PI: Kathleen Stokes

Funder: Irish Research Council - IRC New Foundations 2024

Short Description: Amidst the roll out of renewable energy, the work associated with infrastructural repair, decommissioning and waste largely remains under-considered. This project will investigate repair and recovery work associated with Ireland’s renewable energy infrastructures. It will map current approaches and assess Ireland’s current infrastructural processes and work associated with repair and waste management of renewable energy infrastructures. Solar and wind energy have been selected as two primary sectors for the study, given their central role within Ireland’s energy transition. The project will integrate and analyse existing data and literature with primary research to develop in-depth insights of the sector’s current form and opportunities.

Undertaken in partnership between Dublin City University (DCU) and the Rediscovery Centre (RDC), the project will undertake novel research and disseminate findings to community, policy, industry, academic, and public audiences through an array of dynamic outputs and collaborative events. It will also facilitate knowledge exchange and network-building for subsequent research and collaborations.

Title: FARM-NC (Farming Resilience and Management through Natural Capital)

PI: Jimmy O’Keeffe

CO-I’s: Mary Bourke (TCD), Darren Clarke, Valerie McCarthy, Niamh Cullen.

Funder: Environmental Protection Agency

Website:https://www.farmnaturalcapital.com/

Short Description: FARM-NC (Farm-level Natural Capital) is a research project working to create a transferable and adaptable framework for Whole-Farm Natural Capital Accounting in Ireland. Our goal is to support sustainable land use, improve biodiversity, reduce flood risk, and enhance climate resilience while recognising and supporting farmers' right to farm.

Title: Estimating shoreline recession rates for coastal hard cliffs using time-series elevation data and additional datasets

PI: Niamh Cullen

CO-I’s: Mary Bourke (TCD), Ronadh Cox (Williams College), Carlos Loureiro (University of Algarve), Bernard Essel (Post Doc DCU).

Funder: Geological Survey of Ireland - GSI Targeted Projects 2023

Short Description: This project will quantify cliff recession at different scales and timeframes using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) and Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry techniques. The project will also utilise numerical analyses and modelling to help identify the main factors driving erosion.

Title: Digital Twin-based solutions for enhanced integration of ecosystem services in water resource management

PI: Valerie McCarthy

CO-I’s: Iestyn Woolway (Bangor University), Don Pierson & Ana (Uppsala University), Uni

Funder: EU Horizon Europe - EU Water4All

Short Description: EcoTwin is dedicated to strengthening the integration of ecosystem services within the realm of water resource management, with a specific emphasis on lake ecosystems. Lakes, as crucial components of our natural environment, contribute invaluably to society by offering a diverse array of ecosystem services, ranging from flood and drought regulation to recreation, habitat provision, and drinking water supply. However, the escalating impacts of climate change pose an imminent and severe threat to the resilience of lake ecosystems, compelling the need for the adoption of advanced technology and methodologies to fortify our understanding, management, and long-term preservation efforts. In response to this critical challenge, EcoTwin leverages the power of Digital Twins as a transformative tool. Digital Twins represent virtual replicas of physical systems, continuously updated in real-time, enabling sophisticated simulations and in-depth analysis. Their distinctive advantage lies in their capacity to amalgamate a wide array of data sources, including Earth Observation, in-situ observations, and various models, to generate precise simulations of aquatic ecosystems. EcoTwin is committed to harnessing the potential of Digital Twins to radically enhance the integration of Ecosystem Services in water resource management, with a primary focus on flood and drought regulation, habitat provisioning, recreation, water supply, and carbon and nutrient management.

Title: Chemicals in the environment – PFAS, a review and analysis of its uses, sources, exposure pathways, risks and challenges for industry, society and environmental protection in Ireland

PI: Susan Hegarty

Funder: Environmental Protection Agency - EPA Research Call 2022

Title: Innovative tools to control organic matter and disinfection byproducts in drinking water

PI: Valerie McCarthy

Funder: EU Horizon Europe - EU Horizon C6 Food Bio Ag Envirn 2023

HISTORY

Title: Afterlives: Single Women and the New Irish State

PI: Leeann Lane

Funder: Royal Irish Academy

Title: A retelling of Le Fanu's Carmilla

PI: Juliana Adelman

Funder: Arts Council of Ireland - Literature Bursary Award

Title: The Irish Revolution series

PI: Daithí Ó Corráin

CO-I’s: Professor Marian Lyons (Maynooth University)

Website: https://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2023/meath/related

Short Description: This edited series of 32 volumes published by Four Courts Press is the most ambitious and far-reaching contribution to the history of the Irish Revolution (1912-23) anywhere in the world. Leading international scholars from universities in Ireland (north and south), Britain and the Netherlands have been contracted to write on the experience of a specific county during the Irish Revolution. The series makes accessible to a wide readership cutting-edge research and new approaches to this pivotal period in Irish history. To date 18 volumes have been published.

Title: The British government, civilian war casualties and workmen’s compensation: a case study of the 1916 Easter Rebellion

PI: Daithí Ó Corráin

Short Description: The historiography of human loss during the First World War has focused largely on combatants. Using the 1916 Easter rebellion as a case study, this project expands the historiographical understanding of how civilian deaths and injuries were addressed by the British government.

Title: The post-civil war reconstruction of O’Connell Street, Dublin

PI: Daithí Ó Corráin

Short Description: Utilizing newly available compensation claims as well as state and local government records, this project examines several aspects of the post-civil war restoration of Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

Title: The Roman Catholic Church and the Irish Civil War

PI: Daithí Ó Corráin

Short Description: In October 1922 during the Irish civil war the Irish Catholic bishops issued a controversial and politically partisan pastoral letter. It was supportive of the Anglo-Irish treaty and strongly condemnatory of anti-treaty republicans. This project has two interlinked aims. The first is to examine the origins, content and impact of the pastoral from the perspective of the Catholic hierarchy. The second draws on the republican press, national army intelligence reports, diocesan material and personal papers to assess how republicans responded to episcopal censure.

Title: The Keating branch of the Gaelic League

PI: Daithí Ó Corráin

CO-I’s: Dr Gerard Hanley (Research Associate) & Dr Mary MacDiarmada (Research Associate)

Short Description: In the 1910s the Keating branch of the Gaelic League became the most separatist, initially linguistically and then politically. This project will provide the first in-depth historical examination of the branch and its membership.

Title: Sin in the Serenissima: Policing Illicit Sexuality in 18th-century Venice

PI: Celeste McNamara

Funder: Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation (2021-2024)

Website: https://celestemcnamara.com/research-2/

Short Description: This project is examining the ways in which the Venetian state and church worked to police illicit sexuality in the 18th century, and how ordinary Venetians constructed narratives of their own intimate experiences to get their desired outcomes from the city’s numerous secular and ecclesiastical courts.

Title: Genetic Testing across the Iron Curtain. Consumer-Driven Genetics and Individual Health Rights, 1960s-1990s

PI: Roman Birke

Short Description: I am currently working on a book on the transnational history of genetic screening in the Republic of Ireland, West Germany, the GDR, and the United States. The book examines how advocacy groups and parents across the Iron Curtain and in different religious and political environments advocated for the right to access genetic screening services. For example, in Western European and US courts, parents frequently employed discourses of “wrongful births” and “wrongful life” to argue for their perceived right to genetic knowledge and abortions. In the GDR, East German citizens demanded the expansion of reproductive rights in letter campaigns directed at state officials. The book also explores how these domestic campaigns intersected with the emerging human rights discourse on genetics within the United Nations. My argument is that while domestic advocacy—often fuelled by feminist movements—promoted genetic screening as part of individual reproductive rights that diverged from UN resolutions. The UN’s focus was on anti-discrimination, anti-racism, and the recognition of genetic diversity as a vital part of humanity’s joint heritage, sometimes contradicting individual rights claims. Overall, the book examines the complex and uneasy relationship between the expansion of reproductive rights, discourses on genetic fitness/eugenics, and the role of international law.

Title: Contested Lands: Property Conflicts in the German Colonial Empire

PI: Roman Birke

Funder: German Research Foundation (Project A04 of SFB294, 2021–2024)

Short Description: I am finishing a book project that I started at the University of Jena which investigates the history of colonial property policies within the German Empire. This project was based within the framework of the interdisciplinary research cluster “Structural Change of Property”. I use archival documents which originated in today’s Cameroon, Tanzania, Western Samoa, and the Chinese Shandong Peninsula to investigate property-based conflicts between German trading companies/settler societies, colonial administrators, and the German Empire’s colonial office. Acknowledging key works on expropriation and colonial violence, including genocide, I argue that expropriations of landed property were only one part of wider policies, which could also include the preservation of indigenous property titles by German colonial administrators or compensations for expropriations.