Currently I am a 5th year PhD candidate in Anthropology, with a focus on Historical Archaeology.
My dissertation research centers on the archaeological examination of Irish immigrants from County Cork, Ireland who settled in the American mining West during the mid nineteenth century. Employing multi-sited research in Cork City, Ireland and in the mining town of Virginia City, Nevada my work examines the development and maintenance of a tangible Irish immigrant community in Virginia City based around the Irish saloon, much as communities in Ireland were socially centered around the pub. In particular, I am interested in how the pub/saloon’s material culture, architecture and position within both a physical and cognitive landscape have aided in creating and maintaining communities in periods of significant social, economic and geographic change. My research draws theoretically and methodologically from studies of identity, consumption, landscape, folk history, ethnicity and religion, and food and drink.
Research Interests: Archaeology of Ireland and the American West, The World of the Nineteenth Century, Historical Geography / Landscape Archaeology, Material Culture Studies, Community, Oral History, Public Humanities and Museum Studies, and Digital Archaeologies.
Please check out The Virtual Pub Project my exploration of a single pub through the varied media of the digital age.
