Helene O'Keeffe
2009
| Twitter link | @heleneokeeffe |
| Bio | I am a historian of Modern Irish History and Research Officer in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences in University College Cork. Between December 2022 and May 2024, I acted as project manager and outreach officer for the interdisciplinary Irish Civil War Fatalities Project, which enumerated and mapped the combatant and civilian fatalities between 28 June 1922 and 24 May 1923. This large-scale public history project was conducted by UCC in partnership with RTE and the Irish Military Archives and supported with funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2024. I also project managed, contributed to, and co-edited the second phase of this two-phase public history project, The ‘Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Perspectives’, produced in partnership with the National Library of Ireland and published by Cork University Press in September 2024. I was awarded a PhD in History from University College Cork in 2009 for a thesis supervised by Dr Donal Ó Drisceoil. ‘A “lively poltergeist” Robert Emmet: commemoration, memory and tradition, 1878-2003’ examines some of the formative influences on the collective memory of the nineteenth-century patriot. I also hold an MA in Irish Media History, a BA (Hons) in English and History and a HDip in post primary education. I also completed a post-doctoral research fellowship as a member of the Atlas of the Irish Revolution research team in UCC. An active public historian, I have coordinated and contributed to an array of public history projects based on the published and ongoing map-based scholarship by the Atlas of the Irish Revolution team. These projects included two public lectures series and a six-week on-line adult education course in partnership with the National Library of Ireland. I also curated a public exhibition in St Peter’s in Cork City in 2019; managed and designed the ongoing ‘Irish Revolution’ digital history project in partnership with the Irish Examiner; created and disseminated the Atlas of the Irish Revolution Resources for Schools; and coordinated and contributed to three map-based digital history projects produced in partnership with RTE and funded under the Decade of Centenaries Programme between 2019 and 2024. I was also a lead member of the organising committee for the three-day Irish Civil War National Conference in UCC in June 2022. I also contributed widely to television and radio documentaries and newspaper supplements relating to the Irish revolutionary period, including Fake News and Irish Freedom (RTE Radio 1, 2024); Forgotten: The Widows of the Irish Revolution (RTE, 2022); Scéalta Grá na hÉireann (TG4 2021); 74 Days: The Hunger Strike Of Terence MacSwiney (RTE, 2020); My first book, To Speak of Easter Week: family memories of the Irish Revolution, was published by Mercier Press in 2015, and I am currently working on a monograph based on my Phd research. My current research interests are Irish revolutionary history, commemoration, local history, and Irish social history.
|
| Areas of expertise | Irish Revolutionary History Public history Modern Irish history Memory and Commemoration Outreach and public engagement Digital History |
| Keywords | {Modern Irish History}; {early-twentieth-century Ireland}; {public history}; {memory}; {commemoration}; {Robert Emmet}; {oral history}; {Irish Civil War}; {Irish Revolution}; {Irish War of Independence} |
| Nickname | Helene O'Keeffe |
| Membership Type |
| Education | PhD, University College Cork (2009) M.A. (Irish Media History), University College Cork (2004) HDip Education, University College Cork, (2000) B.A., University College Cork (1999) English and History, Joint Hons |
| Employment | 2024-Present: Historian and Research Officer, CACSSS, UCC 2022-2024: Project Manager and Outreach Officer, Mapping the Irish Civil War Project, UCC 2019-2022: Occasional Lecturer and Digital Support Officer, Atlas of the Irish Revolution Projects, UCC 2017-2017: Head of Education and Communications, The Heritage Council, Kilkenny 2016-2016: Post-Doctoral Fellow, Atlas of the Irish Revolution Research Team, UCC 2011-2016: Teacher and TY Programme Coordinator, St Angels College, Cork 2001-2011: Post Primary Teacher, English and History, Cork |
| Management & Administrative experience |
|
| Teaching | ‘The Making of Modern Ireland’ (UCC, 2019-2020) ‘MA Public History – Seminar’ (2020-2023, UCC) ‘Mapping the Irish Revolution, 192-1923’ (2021, NLI) |
| Outreach activities |
Media
|
| Committees & Associations | Member: Irish Association of Professional Historians (IAPH)
|
| Awards | Mapping the Irish Civil War Project – Government of Ireland, Decade of Centenaries Programme funding 2023 UCC University Staff Recognition Awards · UCC Research Team of the Year 2018 Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Atlas of the Irish Revolution Research Team, UCC, 2016-2017 |
| Other activities | Public Lectures and Conference Papers ‘New Perspectives on the Irish Civil War’, Dublin Festival of History, Printworks, Dublin Castle, 27 September 2024 ‘Mapping the Irish Civil War’, West Cork History Festival 2024: Aftermaths and Diaspora, 10 August 2024 ‘A Troubling Inheritance: The Civil War in Kerry in Oral History and Memory’, Kerry Civil War Conference: History Legacy and Memory, 24 February 2023 ‘Mapping the Burning of Cork, 13 September 2021, Irish American Cultural Institute (IACI) Jesery Chapter, “Ireland: Remembering 1921!” Lecture Series ‘Mapping the Burning of Cork, 11-12 December 1920’, NLI Public Lecture Series, 9 December 2020 ‘The Atlas of the Irish Revolution’, Dublin Festival of History, Printworks, Dublin Castle, 7 October 2018 ‘Map-based Resources for Schools: The Irish Revolution Period’, History Teachers Association of Ireland, National Conference, Killarney, 2018 ‘Female participation in the Irish Revolution: An oral history’, 21 April 2017, Cork City Libraries Decade of Centenaries Lecture Series ‘Once Removed from Revolution: second generation memory of the 1916 Rising’, 19 October 2016, UCC Spring Lecture Series ‘Mining the Layers of Memory’: An examination of the oral history of female participation in the 1916 Rising’, 4-5 April 2014, Cumann na mBan 100 Conference: 1914-2014
|
| Books | Helene O’Keeffe, John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, John Borgonovo and Mike Murphy (eds), Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Perspectives (CUP, 2024) Helene O’Keeffe, To Speak of Easter Week: Family Memories of the Irish Revolution, (Cork, 2015)
|
| Book Chapters | Hélène O’Keeffe, ‘‘‘Freedom or the Grave’: the Mass Hunger Strike of October-November 1923’, in Helene O’Keeffe, John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, John Borgonovo and Mike Murphy (eds), Atlas of the Irish Civil War: New Perspectives (CUP, 2024) Helene O’Keeffe, ‘Thomas Ashe’, in Simon Brouder, Rebel Kerry: from the pages of The Kerryman, (Cork, 2017)
|
| Peer Reviewed Journals | Helene O’Keeffe, “One Little Slice, from a Child’s Point of View”: Locating Childhood Experience during the Civil War in County Kerry in Archived Oral History”, Éire-Ireland, vol. 58, Nos 3 & 4 (Fall/Winter 2023) pp. 35-71 |
| Other Journals | Helene O’Keeffe, ‘Black ’47 in the Tralee Union’ , The Old Kerry Journal, vol. 7, (Winter 2020) Helene O’Keeffe, ‘Centenary of the first Meeting of Dáil Éireann’, The Old Kerry Journal, vol. 6, (Winter 2019) Helene O’Keeffe, ‘The Legacy of Thomas Ashe’, The Old Kerry Journal, vol 5. (Autumn, 2017) |
Copyright © IAPH. All rights reserved.
Historical images on the website from the National Library of Ireland on The Commons | Flickr