About

I am a Marie Skłowdowska-Curie Research Fellow in the School of Arts, English, and Languages here at Queen’s. I’m a graduate of the Drama programmes at the University of Galway (BA (Hons) and PhD), and also hold an MA in Shakespeare and Theatre (with Distinction) from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. Previously I was a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at Galway, and I’ve also taught at UCD and Trinity College Dublin.

I’m an early modernist by trade: I am a theatre historian and a scholar of contemporary performance. My work focuses on Shakespeare and early modern performance studies: focusing on how such performance is informed by and disrupts cultural politics, sexual, and gender norms. Most of my research focuses on this in an Irish (and therefore postcolonial) context, but I’m broadly interested in the politics of the Shakespeare theatre and adaptation industry as a whole. I am also interested in theatre and celebrity; the histories of actors, acting, and acting practices; theatre histories and historiographies; gender and sexuality studies; and contemporary Irish and British performance.

At Queen’s, I am working on the project ‘Shakespeare and the Irish Actor’ (SIA). This project brings together and evaluates the contributions and achievements of Irish actors across hundreds of years of Shakespeare performance on screen and stage in Ireland, North America and Europe. ‘Shakespeare and the Irish Actor’ reappraises the histories of so-called Great Shakespeareans (including Kenneth Branagh, Peter O’Toole, and Fiona Shaw) through the lens of Irishness. It explores the global history of Irish actors performing Shakespeare and, moving between stage, screen and digital forms, brings to light an unrecognised performance archive and a hidden history.

My monograph, Irish Shakespeares: Gender, Sexuality, and Performance in the Twenty-First Century, is forthcoming from Routledge. This book explores contemporary Irish Shakespeare performance’s relationship with notions and constructions of gender and sexuality in Irish culture and society. As well as this and SIA, I’m also at work on the edited collection The Idea of the Shakespearean Actor (with Sally Barnden and Miranda Fay Thomas). I am also developing work on Shakespeare at Dublin’s Gate Theatre, bisexual performance studies, and the insertion of gendered violence in modern versions of Hamlet.