Skip to main content

Professor Mary O'Dowd

BA (UCD), PhD (NUI), MRIA

Professor of Gender History

Director of Education

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9097 3427 
E-mail: m.odowd@qub.ac.uk

Office: 17UQ.103

Mary O’Dowd completed a doctorate at University College Dublin and has taught at Queen’s since 1978.  Her research interests have focussed on early modern Ireland and more recently on women and gender in Irish history.  She was a founding member of the Women’s History Association of Ireland and served as president of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History, 2000–2005.  She is a  member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission.  She is currently co-investigator of an AHRC funded project on the history of marriage in Ireland. Professor O'Dowd was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in May 2010.

Research Interests

Gender and women’s history;  history of marriage; family history;  early modern Ireland;  historiography.

Select Publications

Books:

  • A history of women in Ireland, 1500–1800 (Harlow: Longman, 2005). 
  • Field Day anthology of Irish writing, iv, v, ed. with Angela Bourke et al. (Cork: Cork UP, 2002).
  • Power, politics and land: early modern Sligo, 1568–1680 (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991).
  • Sources for early modern Irish history, 1534–1641, with R.W. Dudley Edwards (Cambridge: CUP, 1985; paperback ed., 2002).

Articles and chapters:

  •  'Politics, patriotism and women in Ireland, Britain and colonial America, c. 1700-1780' in Journal of Women's History, vol 22, no 4 (2010).
  • 'O'Connell and the lady patriots: women and O'Connellite politics, 1824–1845' in Allan Blackstock and Eoin Magennis (eds), Politics and political culture in Britain and Ireland, 1750–1850: essays in tribute to Peter Jupp (Belfast, 2007).
  • (Ed. with Ilaria Porciani), special issue of Storia della storiografia/Histoire de l'historiographie, xlvi (2004) on 'Women historians in Europe, 1800–2000'.

Teaching

Professor Mary O'Dowd teaches on the following programmes / modules:

Undergraduate

  Rebellion in Early Modern Ireland

Current PhD supervision:

  • Leanne Calvert, 'Gender and the 18th-century Ulster Presbyterian community'
  • James O'Neill, 'Military Strategy and Tactics in the Nine Years War'
  • Meadhbha ni Bhaoill, 'Women and education in North West Donegal 1838-1960'
  • Ruth Thorpe, 'Elite women and material culture in Ireland 1760-1860'

Recent PhD supervision:

  • Claire Rush, 'Intermediate educational provision for girls in Northern Ireland, 1867-1947'. PhD. 2010.
  • Elaine Farrell, 'Infanticide and concealment of birth in Ireland, 1850-1900'. PhD. 2010.

Relevant website addresses

International Federation for Research in Women’s History

H-Women