Currently I am a third year PhD student in Anthropology, with a focus on Historical Archaeology.

My dissertation research examines the role of the pub in late nineteenth-century Ireland as a locus for community development and maintenance. In particular, I am interested in how the pub'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 political change. My research draws theoretically and methodologically from studies of identity, consumption, folk history, ethnicity and religion, and anthropological examinations of food and drink. Spatially, my research focuses on communities within a general proximity of Galway City with a specific emphasis on County Galway. The implications of this research articulate well with such modern concerns as Ireland's current cultural shifts resulting from its incorporation in the European Union, as well as with Ireland's recent dramatically changing dynamic with the public house.

There are many more details to come...

Research Interests: Archaeology of Ireland and the North Atlantic, 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.

[email]