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Ciara Breathnach is Associate Professor in History at the University of Limerick and an Irish Research Council Laureate Awardee. She has published widely on Irish socio-economic, gender, cultural and health history. Her current monograph Ordinary lives, death and social class: Dublin City Coroner’s Court, 1876-1902 is under contract and forthcoming with Oxford University Press. She is co-editor of two forthcoming volumes:
1. Ciara Breathnach, Jyoti Atwal and Sarah-Anne Buckley (eds.), Gender History: Ireland 1850-1922 (in preparation and under contract with Routledge India, due 2021).
2. Ciara Breathnach and Ian Walsh (eds.), Inquest Reports of Dr Joseph E. Kenny, Dublin City Coroner, 1900 (in preparation and under contract with Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, due 2022).

She is author of The Congested Districts Board of Ireland, 1891-1923, poverty and development in the West of Ireland (Dublin, 2005) and editor/co-editor of seven conference proceedings. Apart from chapters in edited volumes, she has published articles in Health and History, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, Nursing History Review, Social History of Medicine, Gender & History, Urban History, Medical Humanities, Cultural and Social History, Medical History, Social History, Irish Historical Studies, Immigrants and Minorities, History of Family: an International Quarterly, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Historical Research: the Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research and New Hibernia Review.

She sits on the National Archives Advisory Council and the Irish Manuscripts Commission, she is a former member of the Board of the National Library of Ireland (2015-2020) and the Heritage Council (2012-2016). Breathnach has held several research awards as Principal or Co-Investigator and is currently an Irish Research Council Laureate Awards 2017/2018 recipient for a project entitled Death and Burial Data: Ireland 1864-1922 (2018-2022).

Recent Publications

Ciara Breathnach, ‘Capital Punishment in Irish Prisons’, Health and History, volume 22:1 (2020): 104-125. DOI: 10.5401/healthhist.22.1.0104

Ciara Breathnach and Sarah-Anne Buckley, ‘Rural youth, seasonal labor and family income: Ireland 1890-1935’, Journal of the history of Childhood and Youth, 13.1 (2020):103-22 DOI: 1353/hcy.2020.002

Ciara Breathnach and Tiziana Margaria, ‘In defence of the paper census’, Nature, Vol 577 (9 January 2020): 170.

Ciara Breathnach, ‘The Triumph of Proximity: The Impact of District Nursing Schemes in 1890s’ Rural Ireland’, Nursing History Review 26 (2018): 68–82.

Ciara Breathnach and Brian Gurrin, ‘Maternal mortality, Dublin 1864-1905’, Social History of Medicine Social History of Medicine, Volume 31, Issue 1 (2018):79–105 https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkx010

Ciara Breathnach, ‘Infant life protection and medico-legal literacy in early twentieth-century Dublin’, Women’s History Review, 26:6 (2017): 781-798

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2017.1307283

Ciara Breathnach and Brian Gurrin, ‘A tale of two cities – infant mortality and cause of infant death, Dublin, 1864–1910’, Urban History, 44:4 (2016): 647-677 doi:10.1017/S0963926816000717

Ciara Breathnach, ‘Infant life protection and medico-legal literacy in early twentieth-century Dublin’, Women’s History Review 26:6 (2017): 781-798 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2017.1307283

Ciara Breathnach, ‘Handywomen and Birthing in Rural Ireland, 1851–1955’, Gender and History, 28:1 (2016): 36-56 DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.12176

Ciara Breathnach and Brendan Kelly, ‘Perspectives on patienthood, practitioners and pedagogy’, Medical Humanities, 42:2 (2016):73–75. doi:10.1136/medhum-2016-010980.

Ciara Breathnach, ‘Professional patienthood and mortality: Seán Ó Ríordáin’s diaries 1974–1977’, Medical Humanities, 42:2 (2016):1–5 doi:10.1136/medhum-2015-010828.

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@CiaraBreath

Country Focus

Ireland

Expertise by Geography

Ireland

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Family, Gender, Medicine, Migration & Immigration, Sexuality, Urban History, Women