British and Irish History: locality, ideology and economy

Aims

This research group brings together members of the History department working on different aspects of the history of Britain and Ireland from the 18th Century.  It works on two levels; as an active research support group for members, and as a vehicle for exploring research interests in the wider world. 

The group draws on a range of interests to explore approaches to writing British and Irish history in the twenty-first century. Histories of locality, ideology and economy cover a rich and varied set of topics and perspectives. But such diversity also poses certain challenges to historians. In particular, how we can integrate 'micro' studies of people and places into broader 'macro' histories of social, economic and political change in Britain and Ireland.

This research group provides a forum to explore such issues with the aim of gaining new insights into major historical debates.

Members

Amanda Goodrich’s research interests include eighteeth and nineteenth political and cultural history, particularly political ideas. She has published a book on the English response to the French Revolution in terms of the pamphlet debate of the 1790s. Recent research focuses on politicisation and identity in Britain and her empire, and linguistic usage of 'aristocracy', 1700-1850. At present Amanda is working on popular attitudes to monarchy in the same period and planning a biography of Henry Redhead Yorke. Amanda is a convenor for the Long Eighteenth Century Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London.

Janice Holmes’ areas of interest include Irish religious history, women’s history and local history. She has written on various aspects of Irish Protestantism and evangelicalism including religious revivals, open air preaching, Irish deaconesses and vernacular religious architecture. She has curated museum exhibitions and organised community lecture programmes. She is Chair of the OU’s MA in History, which focuses on the study of local history in the four nations between 1750-1950. As a result, she has started to research the parish of Kilwaughter, in northeast county Antrim, and blogs about it here.

Donna Loftus is a social and cultural historian of nineteenth-century Britain with a particular interest in the market, social relations and identity. Her research focuses on Victorian understandings of, and responses to, capitalism and industrialisation and uses a range of sources to explore attitudes to economic and social development during a period of rapid change. Donna is a committee member of the Social History Society.

Robin Mackie’s research interests are in nineteenth and twentieth century British economic and social history, and, in particular, business history and the relations between education, science and industry. He is at present working on an article on succession strategies in family-owned businesses in Scotland.

Helen O'Shea is currently researching the Irish contribution to emergency law and order in the post-war British Empire. Three major emergency periods, namely in Palestine (1945-48), Malaya (1948-60) and Kenya (1952-59), are being explored. She is also undertaking an oral history project of Irish citizens in the British Army who were directly involved in post-war counter-insurgency operations, who then returned to Ireland in an attempt to bring these narratives to light in the context of commemoration, memory and the politics of national narrativisation.

David Vincent researches in the history of British and European literacy and the social and cultural history of secrecy and privacy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. David Vincent’s research interests cover working-class autobiography, British and European Literacy, and the cultural and political histories of secrecy and privacy.  He is the author or editor of fifteen books  He has recently completed a book: I hope I don’t intrude. Privacy and its dilemmas since 1800 and is now writing Privacy. A Short History (Polity) and preparing contributions to A History of English Autobiography (CUP) and for The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education (OUP).

Graduate Opportunities

The History department accepts both full and part-time PhD research students. A small number of fully-funded studentships are available. Follow this link for details on our research interests and for the application procedure. Note that applications for the research studentships need to be submitted by the 1st March and that the successful candidates are expected to start in the following September. You can find out about group members’ research areas by consulting individuals’ pages.

Students who have graduated from the OU history MA with merit or above are welcome to apply.