ProfessorDeirdre Raftery

Deirdre Raftery is Full Professor of the History of Education at UCD. Her work pays particular attention to the histories of schools, convents, universities and colleges. She is also interested in digital humanities and digital histories. 

She is PI of UCD ConventCollections, a research team working on histories of convent schooling in the nineteenth century.
She is Co-PI of PINNACLE II, a major initiative to develop research on women in education leadership in the Global South.

Currently she has a team of funded Post-Doctoral Fellows working on nineteenth and early twentieth century materials from convent archives, exploring areas such as vocation, missionary activity, global influence, and education provided for both medics and teachers in the nineteenth century.. She is particularly interested in the following research areas: nineteenth and early twentieth century education; religious orders & schooling in Ireland and internationally; gender & education; image-based research; school architecture and the study of education spaces.

Deirdre's PhD researchers have worked on: university education for women; convent education in Ireland; denominationalism and education; the history of nurse education; training and education for an Garda Siochana in Ireland since 1930; the Irish language in education in the twentieth century; multi-culturalism and education change; education during and after the Great Famine; digital humanities and education; and many aspects of elementary and national schooling. Follow on twitter: @DeirdreRaftery