Irial Glynn

I am a migration historian and my research focuses principally on the period after 1945. Migration represents, in my opinion, an excellent medium to teach students about global connections and movements in the past because of its resonance for the present. My current research principally revolves around three projects: 1) a comparative analysis of how migration has affected Irish society since 1945, 2) a global history of boat refugees since the 1940s, and 3) a study of how nativism has developed globally since the late 19th century. I am the co-editor of History Hub at UCD (historyhub.ie), which aims to make the most recent academic research available on-line to everyone who loves history. HistoryHub has generated 1.3 million listens so far for historical podcasts. To listen to my series on the history of xenophobia, go to https://historyhub.ie/history-xenophobia. Previously, I was one of the editors of the Journal of Migration History (Brill) until 2020.

I completed my PhD in refugee history at the European University Institute (EUI) in late 2009. During my studies, I was lucky enough to spend time as a visiting student at the Australian National University and as a visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford.

Following my PhD, I co-wrote an extensive funding application for the Irish Refugee Council for the establishment of a database for European asylum law, which received substantial funding from the European Commission's European Refugee Fund (see https://www.asylumlawdatabase.eu/en). In 2010, I was a visiting fellow at New York University on an NYU-CRNS project entitled 'Memory and Memorialization'. Later that year, I returned to Dublin, where I taught at UCD and on the Trinity College Access and UCD Access programmes until October 2012, when I took up a post-doc position on the Emigre project about Irish emigration in the Department of Geography at University College Cork.

In January 2014, I started a Marie Curie Fellowship at Leiden University’s Institute for History and in January 2016, I became a permanent lecturer there. In August 2020, I returned to University College Dublin to take up a position as lecturer in the School of History.

Current doctoral students:

Aydin Anil Mucek, 'Framing Racism in Ireland: Racism, anti-racism, and national belonging in Ireland, 1955-1995'
Tasneem Filaih, 'Muslims in Ireland: From students to citizens, 1959 – 1997'