Fieldwork
On the reclamation of traumatic spaces in Ireland.
Site-based photographs, my own, of places rather than people: Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, Famine Memorials, the ghost estates left by the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, and the contested walls of Belfast and Dublin.
They inform my final scholarly book, on spatial trauma in Ireland and Northern Ireland — and how such spaces are reclaimed, memorialized, or left to stand. The argument has been taking shape in conference papers since 2014. One article has been accepted for publication in 2027.
This webpage will likely persist, and become even more important upon the book’s eventual publication. My goal for this page is two-fold: to offset the financial pressures created by image-heavy manuscripts and, more important, to augment my chapters’ arguments with visual support.
Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes
- “Home (Dis)Rule: Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, and Ghost Estates.” American Conference for Irish Studies. Denver, CO, 2026.
- “Ireland’s Last Magdalene Laundry.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Boston, MA, 2024.
- “Excavating History: Justice for Irish Magdalenes.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Niagara, NY, 2023.
Ghost Estates, Famine Memorials, and Topographical Scars
- “Irish Spatial Texts and Topographical Scars.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA, 2025.
- “Thwarted Alchemy: Irish Ghost Estates and Post-Celtic-Tiger Literature.” Humanities and Education Research Association. Chicago, IL, 2018.
- “Topographical Scars: Economic Collapse, Mass Emigration, and Irish Tourism.” Popular and American Culture Association. New Orleans, LA, 2015.
- “Trauma Memorials and Historical Geography: Ghost Estates as Modern-day Famine Walls.” Transatlantic Connections II. Donegal, Ireland, 2015.
Belfast, Dublin, and Contested Space
- “Politics and the Humanities in Belfast Street Art.” Humanities and Education Research Association. Chicago, IL, 2020.
- “An Art-walk in Belfast: Stepping beyond Politics.” American Conference for Irish Studies. Boston, MA, 2019.
- “Slouching towards Belfast to be Born: Apolitical Street-art in Belfast.” Popular and American Culture Association. Washington, DC, 2019.
- “Between the Lanes: Politics and the Humanities in Irish Street-art.” Humanities and Education Research Association. San Diego, CA, 2017.
- “‘What Rough Beast’: Integrated and Conflicted Spaces in Dublin.” American Conference on Irish Studies. Dublin, Ireland, 2014.
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