Professor Margaret Kelleher

Margaret Kelleher is Professor and Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College Dublin. She has published widely in the areas of Irish women’s writings, nineteenth-century Irish literary studies, famine studies, modern and contemporary Irish culture, and digital humanities.

Margaret’s recent monograph The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (UCD Press) was awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books in Language and Culture by the American Conference for Irish Studies in 2019, and in 2020 was shortlisted for the Michel Déon Prize. Margaret is co-editor, with Dr James O'Sullivan, of the collection of essays Technology in Irish Literature and Culture, recently published by Cambridge University Press (2022). Other books include The Feminization of Famine (published by Duke UP and Cork UP, 1997), The Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2006), co-edited with Philip O'Leary, and Ireland and Quebec: Interdisciplinary Essays on History, Culture and Society (Four Courts Press, 2016), co-edited with Michael Kenneally.

Margaret is Board Member of the Museum of Literature Ireland (https://moli.ie/) and was academic lead for UCD in the foundation of this landmark public humanities initiative; the museum is a collaboration with the National Library of Ireland and is situated in Newman House on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, formerly the university home of James Joyce, Kate O’Brien, Flann O’Brien and many other Irish writers. She is former Chair of the Board of the Irish Film Institute and is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. In Spring 2020 she was Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Glucksman House, New York University, and from 2022-2023 she was a Cullman Centre Fellow at the New York Public Library. Other visiting scholarships over her career have included Boston College, Peking University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Concordia University Montreal, University of São Paulo, St John's College, Cambridge and University of Virginia.

Margaret is delighted to be the 2022-2023 holder of the prestigious Parnell Fellowship, established by Magdalene College in 1992 on the centenary of the death of Charles Stewart Parnell. She looks forward to joining the College community and will work on completing a biography of Irish writers, Mary and Padraic Colum.

Research Interests

Margaret has published widely in the areas of Irish women’s writings, nineteenth-century Irish literary studies, famine studies, modern and contemporary Irish culture, and digital humanities.

Qualifications

• Boston College: PhD conferred May 1992.
• University College Cork: BA (First Class Hons) in English and History 1981-1984.

Career/Research Highlights

Elected member of Royal Irish Academy, 2020

Cullman Center Research Fellow, New York Public Library, 2022-2023

Fulbright Visiting Fellow, New York University, 2020

Maamtrasna Murders was awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books in Language and Culture by the American Conference for Irish Studies in 2019, and in 2020 was shortlisted for the Michel Déon Prize.

Academic Lead for Museum of Literature Ireland, a collaboration between University College Dublin and National Library of Ireland (10 million public humanities project)

Chair of Irish Film Institute, 2013-2021

Professional Affiliations

Member of Royal Irish Academy

Selected Publications

The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (UCD Press, 2018);

Technology in Irish Literature and Culture, co-edited with James O'Sullivan (Cambridge University Press, 2022);

The Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2 vols), co-edited with Philip O'Leary (Cambridge University Press, 2006);

The Feminisation of Famine (Cork UP and Duke UP, 1997).