Dr Niall Whelehan

Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow

History

Personal statement

My work focuses on the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and themes of migration, political violence, nationalism and radicalism, mainly relating to Ireland and the Irish diapsora. I completed my doctorate at the European University Institute, Florence. Before coming to Strathclyde, I worked at Bielefeld University, Germany, NUI Glaway and the University of Edinburgh.

My new book is called Changing Land: Diaspora Activism and the Irish Land War and will appear in 2021 with NYU Press, in the Gluckman Irish Diaspora Series. It is based on research supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Intra-European Fellowship and examines radical networks in Ireland and Irish migrant communities in Scotland, England, the United States and Argentina. My first book is The Dynamiters: Irish nationalism and political violence in the wider world, 1867-1900, which appeared with Cambridge University Press in 2012.

My next project is a book length study of John O'Dwyer Creaghe, an Irish emigrant who became a leading figure in the large anarchist movement in Argentina at the turn of the twentieth century.

I teach the history of modern Ireland at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and I also run a year-long undergraduate module on the global history of terrorism.

Along with teaching and research, I’m interested in history and film and I organise the mini-film series Screening Irish History which has run at the Glasgow Film Theatre, the CCA Glasgow and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse.

At Strathclyde I am the History rep for the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, and I am the Erasmus and International Exchange co-ordinator for History.

Links:  

http://strathclyde.academia.edu/NiallWhelehan

https://twitter.com/Niallnineteen/

Publications

Changing Land : Diaspora Activism and the Irish Land War
Whelehan Niall
The Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series The Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series (2021)
Saving Ireland in Juteopolis : gender, class and diaspora in the Irish Ladies' Land League
Whelehan Niall
History Workshop Journal Vol 90, pp. 74-95 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbaa022
Sacco and Vanzetti, Mary Donovan and transatlantic radicalism in the 1920s
Whelehan Niall
Irish Historical Studies Vol 44, pp. 131-146 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2020.9
Book Review : History from the Bottom Up & the Inside Out: Ethnicity, Race and Identity in Working-Class History by James R. Barrett
Whelehan Niall
The Journal of American History Vol 106, pp. 505-506 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaz453
[Review] Patrick Mannion, 'A Land of Dreams : Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880-1923'
Whelehan Niall
(2019)
The importance of space for understanding political mobilisation
Bouwers Eveline G, Whelehan Niall
Immigrants and Minorities Vol 35, pp. 149-156 (2017)
https://doi.org/10.1080/02619288.2017.1383688

More publications

Teaching

I teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules on the history of Ireland and Irish migration, and the history of political violence and terrorism.

 

I welcome applications from potential PhD students who wish to work on areas of:

  • modern Ireland and the Irish diaspora
  • migration
  • terrorism and political violence
  • Cinema and Irish history

Professional activities

Changing land: Emigrants and visions of radical reform in nineteenth-century Ireland
Speaker
2021
European Social Science History Conference 2021
Speaker
2021
Terrorism and Transnationality
Invited speaker
2021
The Americanisation of Ireland, Culture and Society 1841–1925
Invited speaker
2019
Ireland, Ukraine and Empire
Speaker
2019
A Global History of the Irish Revolution 1916-23
Invited speaker
2019

More professional activities

Projects

Hear the Hammers Ring: Shipyard Workers, Literary Culture and Communities in Clydeside and Belfast, 1840-1914
Whelehan, Niall (Co-investigator)
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award 2021-2025. This supervisor-led studentship application was led by Prof. Kirstie Blair, with myself as second supervisor, and the Scottish Maritime Museum. The student (Ronan McGreechin) was selected after interview. (£72K).
01-Jan-2021 - 01-Jan-2025
Bring your own Hammer: History, Music and Migrant Lives
Whelehan, Niall (Principal Investigator)
This project combines music, digital technologies and primary historical sources to engage with new audiences through the creation of an original song-cycle and website on the topic of migration. External collaborators include the musicians, the Verdant Works Museum, Scotland, the Irish Emigration Museum, Dublin, the University of Limerick, and the Irish Consulate General, Scotland. The reach and significance of the project’s impact will be substantial, aiming to change perceptions of Irish migration in profound ways. This project aims to be one of the three History impact case studies for the next REF cycle.
01-Jan-2020 - 31-Jan-2022
Emigrant Irishwomen and Dundee’s Textile Industry, 1830-1930
Whelehan, Niall (Principal Investigator)
50% share on successful supervisor-led AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award studentship application, £72K. The studentship began on 1 October 2019, the student selected after interview is Niamh Coffey. (Co-supervised with the University of Edinburgh).
01-Jan-2019 - 30-Jan-2023
Diaspora, Colonialism, Anarchism and the Transnational Life of an Irish Doctor in South America
Whelehan, Niall (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2021

More projects