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Dr Andrew Holmes

BA (QUB), MLitt (St Andrews), PhD (QUB), FRHistS

Lecturer in Modern Irish History

Modern history exams officer (L1); Joint Pathway Co-ordinator - History and Theology; MA Irish History co-ordinator

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9097 1297
E-mail: a.holmes@qub.ac.uk

Office: 15UQ.104

Andrew Holmes is a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast (1998), the University of St Andrews (2000), and Queen’s, again, in 2002. Since being awarded his doctorate, he has been a Research Associate at the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages at the University of Ulster, where he also taught Irish history, and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s. He took up his present appointment in October 2006. He is a committee-member of the Ecclesiastical History Society, and the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland.  

Research Interests

The history of religion in Ireland from c. 1660 to the present day with particular reference to Presbyterianism and evangelicalism. He is currently working on a project that examines the religious and intellectual life of Irish Presbyterians between 1830 and 1930 and how they saw their place in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and in the world of transatlantic Protestantism. This involves a study of their attitudes to a variety of issues including philosophy, science, biblical criticism, church history, and their own complex identity as Presbyterians of Scottish origin in Ireland.

Select Publications

Books

Selected articles and essays

  • 'Professor James Thomson Sr. and Lord Kelvin: religion, science, and liberal unionism in Ulster and Scotland', Journal of British Studies, l (2011).
  • ‘Covenanter politics: evangelicalism, political liberalism and Ulster Presbyterians, 1798 to 1914’ in English Historical Review, cxxv (2010).
  • Presbyterian religion, historiography, and Ulster Scots identity, c. 1800 to 1914’ in Historical Journal, lii (2009).
  • ‘Presbyterians and science in the north of Ireland before 1874’ in British Journal of the History of Science, xli (2008).
  • ‘Biblical authority and the impact of Higher Criticism in Irish Presbyterianism, c. 1850-1930’ in Church History, lxxv (2006).
  • ‘The protestant clergies in the European world, 1660-1780’, in S. J. Brown and Timothy Tackett (eds), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vii:  Enlightenment, Revolution and Reawakening, 1660-1815 (Cambridge, 2006).
  • ‘Religious polarisation, church reform, and evangelicalism in Ireland, c. 1770-1840’ in Irish Economic and Social History, xxxiii (2006) [Review Article].
  • ‘The shaping of Irish Presbyterian attitudes to mission, 1790-1840’ in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, lvii (2006).
  • ‘The experience and understanding of religious revival in Ulster Presbyterianism, c. 1800 to 1930’ in Irish Historical Studies, xxxiv (2005).

 

Teaching

Dr Andrew Holmes teaches on the following programmes / modules:

Undergraduate

Presbyterians in Ulster

The Great Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Level 1)

The Death of Christian Britain, c. 1789 to 1914? (Level 1)

Protestantism, evangelicalism and Ulster society: from the United Irishmen to Ian Paisley (Level 3)

 

Current PhD supervision:

  • Tim Donnachie, 'Irish Covenanters & Politics 1798 - 1892'
  • Daniel Ritchie, 'The public career of the Revd Isaac Nelson'