James McConnel

Following my first degree in History at Sheffield University, I was awarded my MA (1998) and PhD (2002) by the University of Durham. I then worked for the University of Hertfordshire as a research assistant on an AHRC-funded project based in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In 2004 I was appointed as a research associate at the University of Ulster and I became a lecturer in history the following year. I arrived at Northumbria in 2008 and served for five years as head of history. To date, my work has primarily focused on the Irish Parliamentary Party before and during the First World War, though I have also published on Irish Protestant commemoration, post-war Welsh nationalism, and the history of time. I am currently the Principal Investigator on an AHRC/Living Legacies-funded project looking at emigrant ‘Geordies’ in the armies of Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, and New Zealand during the First World War.

My main area of interest is Ireland before and during the First World War.

Since 2002 I have published a number of scholarly articles in journals such as Historical Journal, Irish Historical Studies, War in History, Past and Present, and English Historical Review looking at various aspects of the Edwardian IPP and Irish politics. In 2013 I published my monograph, The Irish Parliamentary Party and the Third Home Rule Crisis (Four Courts Press). This book was positively reviewed in The Irish Times, English Historical Review, Irish Studies Review, Journal of British Studies, History Ireland, and a number of other publications.