Dr Máirín MacCarron presented the Irish Historical Research Prize 2021 Lecture, in University College Cork on 17 May 2023. The lecture, ‘The Medieval Invention of Time: the Venerable Bede and Chronology’, was attended by UCC President, Professor John O’Halloran; National University of Ireland Registrar, Dr Patrick O’Leary, and a delegation from the NUI; colleagues from CACSSS and across the University; and other NUI awardees from UCC.

The Irish Historical Research Prize is awarded in alternate years for the best new work of historical research with a significant Irish dimension and of an original character indicating direct research in historical records. Dr MacCarron won for her publication Bede and Time: Computus, Theology and History in the Early Medieval World (Routledge: London and New York, 2020). The book, and lecture, examined the development of time reckoning and chronological systems, in particular the adoption and dissemination of AD-dating, in the early middle ages, and considered the implications of these innovations for our understanding of time and history.

Dr MacCarron is a lecturer in the School of English and Digital Humanities and Principal Investigator of GENCHRON Time for Women? Gender, Chronology and Historiography before AD 900 (IRC Laureate Consolidator grant).