Conor is a history PhD student in the School of HAPP and focuses on the history of Ireland, its diaspora, and religious orders. His PhD explores the transnational network within the Irish province of the Calced Carmelite Order, a Catholic religious order, in England, Wales, and Zimbabwe during the twentieth century. Aspects such as the moment of people, behaviours, communication and knowledge as well as familial, friendship and professional ties are explored across and within this transnational network. 

He has written on the activities of the Carmelites from the Irish province, in his first book entitled A brief history of Welsh Martyrs Church (2023) and in a chapter for Salvador Ryan’s volume, Christmas and the Irish: A Miscellany (2023).

Primary Supervisor: Dr Morier-Genoud

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Sophie Cooper

Currently researching the life and times of Alexander Brown; Ulster émigré and founder of the first indigenous investment bank in the new United States. I am particularly interested in the local, regional and transatlantic networks that enabled the incredible economic growth of the Brown Dynasty. 

My research spans the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and places equal focus on archival material from both Ireland and the United States. 

Primary Supervisor: Prof Peter Gray

Secondary Supervisor: Prof John Turner

Sinead is a PhD candidate at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosphy, and Politics. Sinead graduated from Queen's University Belfast with a BA (Hons) (First Class) in History 2018 and with an MA (Distinction) in History in 2020. In 2019, Sinead was awarded a funded PhD studentship from the Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland).

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Sean O'Connell

My research examines how Margaret Thatcher used nationalism to respond to two significant crises: the 1981 Hunger Strikes in Northern Ireland, which represented Irish separatism, and the 1984-85 Miners' Strikes in England, which reflected northern English regionalism. Through discourse, thematic, and narrative analysis, I explore how her state-centred and neoliberal nationalism, combined with authoritarian populism, aimed to redefine British identity in a post-Empire context. Although her nationalism was framed as British, it was deeply rooted in southern English values, promoting a centralised vision of Britain focused on an English ideological core. This element of her nationalism in domestic governance is an under-explored aspect, complementing existing scholarship that primarily considers how nationalism influenced her foreign policy and race relations. By linking her domestic strategies to her broader ideological goals, my thesis seeks to fill a gap in understanding how Thatcher's nationalism aimed to transform British identity through economic reform, moral rhetoric, and centralised state power.

Researching the intersectionalities of Blackness and queerness in public institutions.

Primary Supervisor: Dr Nik Ribianszky

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Jamie Hagen

I am researching Protestant missionary work in Central Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I seek to explore the perspectives of Open Brethren missionaries Dan and Grace Crawford on indigenous culture and society in the Belgian Congo. I will also explore their relationships with colonial authorities, their evolving theological positions, and the dynamics of their gender roles.

Primary Supervisor: Dr Eric Morier-Genoud

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Crawford Gribben

I am a PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. My research focuses on American History, specifically gender, racism, and anti-communism in the 1950s and 1960s. This thesis is a continuation of my MA dissertation on McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare in the United States, which sparked my interest in conservatism in the Cold War. My PhD thesis focuses on the activities and ideology of two right-wing women's organisations in this period; the Women of the Ku Klux Klan and the Minute Women of the USA. In looking at these two organisations this thesis analyses the different forms of female activism on the Right, examining the implicit and explicit connections between the Women of the Ku Klux Klan and the Minute Women at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Primary Supervisor: Dr Keira Williams

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Paul Corthorn

My thesis assesses the reasons and factors which contributed to firstly the rise, and especially the collapse of the Community Charge (i.e the Poll Tax) in the 1980s and early 1990s. By analysing key government and local council files, memoirs, speeches and various newspapers, my research not only aims to fill a vital gap in the historiography and wider literature pertaining to Thatchers Britain, but also hopes to contribute to knowledge about policy success and failure in areas including local government.

Primary Supervisor: Prof Paul Corthorn

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Jack Taggart

I am examining the extent to which the image of Irish women was shaped in order to support state building and the newly formed Free State's aspirations of gaining international political legitimacy in the conservative environment of post WW1 western Europe. This will include analysis of the shaping of the narrative of women's participation in the Irish revolution to contain it within gender norms, and how that narrative was perpetuated and reinforced, along with examination of the state's restrictive policies and legislation on women, and the political thinking driving those policies.

Primary Supervisor: Prof Diane Urquhart

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Fearghal McGarry

Primary Supervisor: Dr Aglaia De Angeli

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Rosalind Silvester

I am researching the social security reforms passed by the first two 'New' Labour governments, in office between 1997 and 2005. These governments currently sit at the forefront of the 'traditional' boundaries of what may be considered political history, given the twenty-year rule on the release of public documentation; as such, I am hoping to apply the historical method to further our understanding of a period of government which until now has generally been subject only to analyses from the political and social sciences.

Primary Supervisor: Prof Paul Corthorn

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Kieran Connell

My research focuses on male homosexuality in the Irish Diaspora, c. 1884-1967 with a focus on the movement of queer Irish men between Ireland, London, and New York. In particular, I focus on the experiences of queer emigration from Ireland and the role of Irish in London and New York's queer subcultures in the early- to mid-twentieth century.

Primary Supervisor: Dr Tom Hulme

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Keira Williams

Primary Supervisor: Prof Crawford Gribben

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Ian Campbell

I'm researching gendered experiences of education in Northern Ireland, compared to Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, between 1965 and 1998. In particular, I'm engaging with contemporary educational research and emerging historical works to explore girls' and young women's access to, aspirations of, and experiences with secondary and tertiary education during the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Primary Supervisor: Prof Sean O'Connell

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Diane Urquhart

Using previously unstudied primary source materials, my project studies the influence of the European Community/Union on John Hume's approach to the resolution of the Northern Ireland crisis.

Primary Supervisor: Prof Paul Corthorn

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Peter McLoughlin

Primary Supervisor: Dr Keira Williams

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Nik Ribianszky

Primary Supervisor: Dr Tom Hulme

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Sean O'Connell

Primary Supervisor: Prof Peter Gray

Secondary Supervisor: Prof Paul Corthorn

Naomi Petropoulos is a PhD candidate in the School of History, Anthropology, Politics and Philosophy. Naomi graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with an MA in Public History. She also graduated from Ulster University with a BA Honours in History with English and a Postgraduate Diploma in Research in the Arts. Naomi holds a Certificate in Teaching and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Further Education). She is a Member of the Royal Historical Society and Oral History Network of Ireland. Naomi’s research interests include Oral History, gender and de-industrialisation in Derry, the Troubles of Northern Ireland and the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland. Her current research focus is an exploration of the women shirt factory workers of Derry between 1951 and 1971.

Primary Supervisor: Prof Sean O'Connell

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Peter McLoughlin

This study attempts to explore the modernization of Chinese music in the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century through intersecting perspectives of cultural imperialism and nationalism. The history of Sino-Western musical encounters, concepts of cultural imperialism, and nationalism are central to this research.

The project traces the historical memory of disguised female American Civil War soldiers. It examines their representation within various mediums of public memory. This includes popular fiction, newspaper coverage, public commemoration, and academic scholarship. The project’s chronology begins during the war itself and ranges up until the late twentieth century. It uncovers the multifaceted reasons as to why the contemporarily well-known phenomenon of disguised female Civil War soldiers eventually disappeared from public knowledge and memory of the war. Consequently, the project illuminates discriminatory trends within both public historical commemoration and historiography. Whilst there has been an increasing academic attention placed on these women, research on disguised female soldiers remains significantly underdeveloped. The project is an important and significant addition to this small yet growing body of historical scholarship.

Primary Supervisor: Dr Nik Ribianszky

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Keira Williams

Research Focus

Primary Supervisor: Prof Marie Coleman

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Diane Urquhart

Primary Supervisor: Dr Alexander Titov

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Aglaia De Angeli

Primary Supervisor: Dr Hiroki Shin

Secondary Supervisor: Leonie Hannan