SPEAKERS 

in alphabetical order

 

Alan Greer is Associate Professor in Politics and Public Policy at the University of West England in Bristol. He is Convenor of the Irish Politics Group of the Political Studies Association and an active member of the Political Studies Association of Ireland. His 1999 study of the early development of Stormont has given him a continuing interest in the devolution process particularly as it applies to policy and legislation in the critical areas of agriculture, food and rural policies. 

 

Nicola Kelly is Archivist at the OPW-Maynooth University Archive at Castletown House. She is a graduate of Maynooth University, from which she holds a Master's degree in Archival Studies and where she lectures in archival management. She has also served on the staff of g and special collections at several religious and charitable institutions and agencies.

 

Niamh Marnham is an architectural historian and a built heritage consultant at the architectural conservation practice Howley Hayes Cooney. She has worked extensively in her field on both sides of the Irish Sea, with leading practices and as an independent consultant, and from 2009 to 2014 was Office of Public Works Ph.D. Fellow, Tutor and Seminar Co-ordinator in the UCD School of Architecture, where her research on Leinster House led to the award of a Ph.D. Her book An Introduction to the Architectural Heritage of Dublin South City was published in 2017 by the Department of Atts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

 

Patricia McCarthy is an architectural historian specialising in the study of country and town houses in Ireland in the Georgian era. Her particular interests lie in how the spaces in these houses and their contents were used, and the social lives of those who lived in them. She has contributed to numerous publications and conferences. Her book, Life in the country house in Georgian Ireland, was published by Yale University Press in 2016. She is the author of ‘A favourite study’: Building the King’s Inns (2006), and her recent book is Enjoying Claret in Georgian Ireland: a history of amiable excess (2022).

 

John Montague is Associate Professor of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. He has taught in the Departments of Engineering, and History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College, and in the Departments of History of Art and the School of Architecture at University College Dublin. He has worked as a consultant historian on numerous conservation projects in Ireland, and published a number of books and articles on Irish and British architectural history, and on 18th-century mapping. He is currently preparing a book on the history of the Wide Streets Commissioners, an 18th-century planning body in Dublin. He holds a PhD in Early Modern Architecture, Mapping and Art History from Trinity College Dublin, and an MA in Historic Architecture from Warwick University, United Kingdom.

 

Brian O'Connell is an architect and a founding partner in the O'Connell Mahon practice. A graduate of  the School of Architecture UCD, he has served as President of the Architectural Association of Ireland and as a fellow and President of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. He is a founder member of the Architects Council of Europe (ACE), the representative body of the profession in the EU, and was chairman of the European Commission International Sub-Committee on Liability in the European Construction Industry.  He holds a Master of Building and Urban Conservation degree from the National University of Ireland, where his thesis involved a study of the design of parliament buildings, and qualified as a Barrister at Law (King’s Inns) which has led to a specialisation in mediation and arbitration.

 

Ciaran Reilly is an historian of 19th and 20th Century Irish history at the Arts and Humanities Institute at Maynooth University from which he holds undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. As well as collaborating on research projects with colleagues across Ireland, Britain, Finland, South Africa and the USA, he is also a founding member of the European Forum for the Study of County Houses and Landed Estates, as well being a member of the International Network of Irish Famine Studies, and the North American Irish Famine Network.