Kevin O'Neill
Associate Prof. of History
Connolly House
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Phone: 617-552-3793
FAX
617-552-3714
oneillk@ bc.edu
Education:
Ph.D. Brown University, 1979
M.A. Loyola University of Chicago, 1973
B.A. Marquette University, 1971
Employment:
Boston College: Director, Irish Studies Program, 2001-2003
Boston College: Co-founder & Co-director, Irish Studies Program, 1978-2000
Boston College: Assistant Prof., 1979-1985
Boston College: Associate Prof., 1985-Present
Boston College: Acting Chair, Department of History, 1993.
University College, Dublin: Fulbright Professor of Irish History, 1991-92
Publications:
Book:
Family and Farm in Pre-famine Ireland: The Parish of Killeshandra. [Madison, 1984, 2003]
Chapters and Articles:
“Nation or Neighbourhood? Mary Leadbeater and Post-Rebellion Reform.” in These Fissured
Isles: Ireland, Scotland and British History, 1798-1848. ed. Terry Brotherstone, Anna Clark,
Kevin Whelan. [Tuckwell Press, 2005]
‘Woe to the oppressor of the poor!’ Post Rebellion Violence in Ballitore.” in Thomas Bartlett,
David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan (eds), 1798: a bicentenary perspective
(Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2003).
“Toward a History of the Irish Landscape” with Marjorie Howes, in Éire/Land ed. by Vera
Kreilkamp, [U. of Chicago Press, 2003]
"Mary Shackleton-Leadbeater" in The Fielday Anthology of Irish Writing: Volume IV: Women.
[Cork University Press, 2002]
“The Star Spangled Shamrock: Memory and Meaning in Irish America..” in Meaning and
Memory in Irish History ed. by Ian MacBride Cambridge University Press, 2001]
"Mary Shackleton Leadbeater: Peaceful rebel." in The Women of 1798. ed. by Daire Keogh and
Nicholas Furlong, [Four Courts Press,. 1998]
"Almost a Gentlewoman: Gender & Adolescence in the Diary of Mary Shackleton" in Chattel,
Servant or Citizen. Women's Status in Chruch and State: Historical Studies XIX. ed. by
Mary O'Dowd and Sabine Wichert. [Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, 1995.]
"Revisionsit Milestone" in Interpreting Irish History: The Debate on Historical Revisionism. ed
by Ciaran Brady [Irish Academic Press, 1994]
"Looking at the Pictures: Art and Artfulness in Colonial Ireland." in Visualizing Ireland:
National Identity and the Pictorial Tradition. ed. by Adele Dalsimer. [Faber & Faber, 1993.]
"Michael Davitt 1846-1906" in Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals Vol. 3 18701914 ed. by Joseph O Baylen, & Norbert Gossman, [Harvester,1988.]
"Man Overboard: Change and Stability in Post-famine Ireland" in From Paddy to Studs: IrishAmerican Communities in the Turn of the Century Era ed. Timothy Meagher [Greenwood
Press, 1986]
"A Demographer Looks at Cúirt An Mheán Oiche", in Eire/Ireland [Spring, 1984]
Major Papers Presented:
“’A Sad Bondage’: Courtship and Marriage in late 18th Century Ireland” to the Modern History
Seminar of Trinity College, Dublin. January, 2006.
“Macaroni in Ballitore: The Dissemination of 18th Century Material Culture.” Presented to the
2005 ACIS Conference, Notre Dame, April, 2005.
“Friends and Radicalism: 1776-1800” Presented to the 2004 ACIS Conference, Liverpool. July,
2004.
“Silencing Friends: Quaker Radicalism 1800-1845.” Presented to the Joint Meeting of the
Society for the Study of 19th Century Ireland and the Midwest Victorian Studies
Association, Chicago, April 16, 2004.
“Friends and Neighbours: Religious, Ethnic, and Political Identity in Penal Ireland.” Presented
to the annual meeting of the AHA, Chicago, Jan. 4, 2003
“The Broken Language of Mary Shackleton-Leadbeater: Neighbourhood as Nation in writing
Reactionary Ireland, 1799-1822.’ Presented to the annual meeting of the MLA, New York,
December, 28, 2002.
“Nation or Neighbourhood: Mary Leadbeater and the Language of Silence in Post Revolutionary
Ireland, 1799-1822” to the 12th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women. University
of Connecticut, July 8, 2002.
“Healing and Health Care in an 18th Century Irish Village” to “Women’s History: Irish/Canadian
Connections.” Halifax, Nova Scotia, August 21, 2002
“Nation or Neighbourhood? Mary Leadbeater and Reform.” at the Mackie, Centennial Conference,
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, July 10, 1999.
“Revolutionary and Sectarian Violence” Seminar presented to the School of Modern History,
Queens University, Belfast. May 12-15, 1999.
“The Aftermath: post rebellion Violence and Sectarianism” at the 1798 Bicentennial
Conference, Dublin, May 24, 1998.
“The Star Spangled Shamrock: Memory and Meaning in the Fifth Province” to the Conference
of Irish Historians in Britain. University of Durham, England. April, 3, 1998.
“Gentle Rebel, Mary Shackleton Leadbeater and the Rebellion of 1798.”. Keynote Paper at the
Irish Association for Research in Women’s History annual conference. Dec. 6, 1997.
"Undevelopment of the pre-famine Irish Economy" to the Instituto di Studi Storico Politici. of
the University of Genoa, Italy. May, 1995"
The Private and Public Writing of Mary Shackleton-Leadbeater" Fourth Annual Conference on
British Women Writers, University of Notre Dame, March, 1995.
"Almost a Gentlewoman: Gender & Adolescence in the Diary of Mary Shackleton." Irish
Conference of Historians, Queens University, Belfast, May 1993
"Keening and Popular Culture." to the Historical Society of Queens University, Belfast, March
1992.
"Women in the 19th Century Irish Rural Work Force." to the New England Regional Meeting of
the ACIS, College of the Holy Cross, November 2, 1990
"Making History: The Irish-American Way." Invited paper presented to the Annual Meeting of
the Canadian Association for Irish Studies. Toronto, March, 1990
Conference commentator with Teodor Shanin of the University of Manchester, and James Scott
of Yale University, at The University of Massachusetts conference: "The Peasantry of
European Russia, 1800-1917" August, 1986.
"A New Model of Peasant Economy." to the Graduate Demography Seminar of the London
School of Economics, 1982.
Professional Activities:
Editorial Board of the Irish Literary Supplement: 1986-Present.
Mitchell Scholarship Board 1999-2003.
New York Department of Education Committee on Famine and Human Rights Curriculum.
1999-2001.
Member of the Fulbright Committee for Ireland. 1997-2000.
Professore a Contratto del Corso Integrativo, Università di Genova, May, 1995.
Historical Advisor to the Strokestown Famine Museum, Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, Ireland,
1991-1997.
Member: American Conference for Irish Studies, American Historical Association, Conference
of British Studies, Irish Women's History Association, International Coalition on Rural
Women's History. MLA.
Referee for: The American Historical Review, Agricultural History, University of Kentucky
Press, Syracuse University Press, National Endowment for the Humanities, Irish Research
Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Oklahoma Press.
External Examiner, Trinity College Dublin, History Ph.D. program. 2006.
Reviews for: American Historical Review, Irish Literary Supplement, History Ireland etc.