Meet our Scholarship Holders
Bio
Clair Marie Butler is a classically trained Mezzo Soprano and Ethnomusicologist with a Bachelor of Music and a Masters in Ethnomusicology from University College Cork. Having received an Excellence Scholarship from UCC’s College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences Clair is currently undergoing an Ethnomusicology PhD. Clair’s research focuses primarily on the music of Aboriginal Australia, with studies such as “The Female Didgeridoo Player: Towards a womanist Perspective” (Ma. Thesis) and “Identity in Composition: The Garma of Indigenous Australia’s High-Art Music” (PhD Thesis). Clair has also received a grade 8 in voice from the CIT Cork School of Music.
Research Proposal
Although Australia is home to a host of indigenous classically trained vocalists and composers there has been little research carried-out on the subject. Through the course of my Doctoral research I hope to explore the works of Indigenous Australian Artists and composers. My research will focus primarily on the Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composer initiative. This, a project established by Aboriginal composer and Dharug language teacher Christopher Sainsbury, consists of a two year programme which supports the development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander composers. The Initiative is carried-out through a partnership with a number of institutions; Moogahlin Performing Arts, The Australian Music Centre Anu School of Music, Ensemble Offspring and The Royal Australian Navy Band. The Dharug name garra-burria translates as to hear to sing. This Title is representative of the purpose of the project, to build connections between indidginous and white high art musics. I suggest that this is reflective of Yongu band Yothu Yindi’s idea of Garma; the meeting of waters/the bringing together of white and indidginous Australian’s. I propose to follow and engage with a number of Artists undergoing the two year Ngarra-burria first people’s composer initiative programme and the concept of Garma within their works.
Bio
Maria has a Degree in English and French from UCC and a Masters in Library and Information Science from UCD. Her Masters’ Capstone Project, Librarian or Psychologist – Bibliotherapy for Teenagers in Irish Public Libraries introduced to Ireland the concept of developmental bibliotherapy for use with teenagers in public libraries. It won the UCD Public Libraries Prize, 2013. She worked as a school librarian in Carlow and a law library assistant in a leading Irish law firm before returning to UCC as the university prospect researcher. She is the co-creator of Phenomná, a podcast highlighting women who are overlooked in mainstream Irish history.
Research
Maria’s research is being conducted in partnership with the National Library of Ireland. It is an interdisciplinary analysis of the work of Marian Keyes, incorporating digital techniques and technologies alongside feminist literary-critical approaches and close textual analysis. It analyses Keyes’ published works alongside the born digital artefacts in the National Library’s Marian Keyes’ Digital Archive to explore how extensively her writing mirrors recent societal and attitudinal changes.
Keyes is one of Ireland’s most successful commercial novelists. To date, she has published 14 novels with combined sales of over 30 million. First published in 1995, her writing coincides with a period of radical change in Irish society. Her novels explore contemporary social issues such as homelessness, addiction and abortion. This project aims to broaden the scope of Irish literary criticism by using innovative methods to analyse the work of a commercially successful but critically neglected author.
This is an interdisciplinary analysis using a combination of close reading via feminist literary-critical approaches and digital humanities methods for distant reading such as collocation analysis, topic modeling and stylometry. It assesses her position in and contribution to the Irish social and cultural landscape by including explorations of thematic consistencies between her writing, her Twitter posts and other materials within her wider digital archive.
Bio
I am a native of Blackrock. I am currently Principal at South Lee Educate Together National School, a new school which opened in 2019. Prior to this I was Principal at Sundays Well Boys National School since 2015, having taught there since 2009. I hold a BA in Economics and Geography and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Economics from UCC. Also a Postgraduate Diploma in Primary School Education and a Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Leadership. I am a Director of the Young Knocknaheeny Area Based Childhood Programme where I first became interested in the area of Wellbeing and social and emotional regulation which are major themes in my research.
Research Proposal
My research is a sequential exploratory mixed methods study which aims to reconceptualise wellbeing in the Irish Primary school system to encompass 4 domains. Drawing on Ontario’s Ministry of Educations’ depiction of wellbeing, I feel that in a primary school, the four domains of wellbeing should include:Social and Emotional Wellbeing, Physical Wellbeing and Cognitive Wellbeing (Hargreaves et al, 2018, p.40). Digital Wellbeing. Also to develop a culturally relevant Irish primary school ecological framework using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory as a guide.
My thesis will contain three distinct stages of research.
- It analyses policy documents prepared in the development of the published wellbeing strategy as well as investigating the strategy itself.
- Local data will be gathered to support existing policy and research on Wellbeing in Primary Schools. This will entail qualitative data collection through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with students, parents, teachers and school principals. This is intended to reflect: (a)The Student Voice. (b)The Teacher Voice. (c) The Parent Voice. (d) The Views of School Leaders.
- Based on Data collected, an ecological model for wellbeing will be developed for the Irish Primary School context. I will then pilot this model across 3 Irish Primary Schools and evaluate it to generate my conclusions.
Bio
Max Darby is a Data Scientist with Musgrave. Max’s primary area of research relates to the intersection of artificial intelligence and human value-systems. Following his BA in Digital Humanities, in which he used artificial neural networks to explore philosophical theories, Max continued his interdisciplinary research in his Masters by proposing an evolutionary account for how artificially intelligent systems will develop in the same way that religions did, using similar behavioural, biological and cultural mechanisms. He is a proponent of responsible AI in industry and academia, and works primarily to ensure AI systems reflect the values of the people that use them.
Research Proposal
Max Darby is a Data Scientist with Musgrave. Max’s primary area of research relates to the intersection of artificial intelligence and human value-systems. Following his BA in Digital Humanities, in which he used artificial neural networks to explore philosophical theories, Max continued his interdisciplinary research in his Masters by proposing an evolutionary account for how artificially intelligent systems will develop in the same way that religions did, using similar behavioural, biological and cultural mechanisms. He is a proponent of responsible AI in industry and academia, and works primarily to ensure AI systems reflect the values of the people that use them.
Bio
Tadhg Dennehy is a PhD student in Film and Screen Media. Tadhg holds an MA in Creative Documentary from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in English and Sociology from UCC.
Proposal
Tadhg’s current research, under the supervision of Dr. Barry Monahan, is focused on cinematic representations of the Northern Irish conflict. Central to this research is the assertion that visual media are the primary mechanisms for the transmission, construction, revision and, ultimately, the shaping of history. Cinema offers the basis for an alternative history; a space to discover a reality that is not immediately visible to the geographically removed spectator. The reality of the Northern Irish conflict was announced to the world with the broadcasting of images from Derry of police brutality at a civil rights march on the 5th of October, 1968. At this time and subsequently, images were carefully managed, censored and propagandised with mechanisms that became familiar (and sometimes unique) tropes, codes and conventions of the representations of that conflict. This research will consider the peculiarities of fiction cinema, documentary and news reportage in creating a specific audio-visual lexicon in the historical reconstructions of the Northern Irish narrative. It is not my aim to argue for the existence of one true mediation of the conflict on screen. Rather my research will involve the close analysis of a number of inter-related cinematic representations dialectically against one another.
Bio
Daniel Fraser is a writer and researcher from Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. He holds a BA (hons) Philosophy from University of Leeds and MA in Modern European Philosophy from the CRMEP Kingston, University of London. His principal research interests are: European literature and poetry, the failure of language, Marx/Marxist philosophy, and cinema. His poems, essays, and fiction have won prizes and been published widely in print and online including: London Magazine, New World Writing , LA Review of Books, Aeon, Mute, Dublin Review of Books, and Radical Philosophy. His poetry pamphlet 'Lung Iron' is published by the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre.
Research Proposal
My research examines traumatic temporality and crisis in post-1945 European Literature through an encounter with contemporary philosophy, with particular focus on: Paul Celan, Marguerite Duras, and Samuel Beckett. Primarily a work of critical theory, the project seeks to interpret the broken, fragmentary forms of literature which emerged after the events of the Second World War, in the shadow of the Holocaust and nuclear atrocities in Japan, through a philosophical concept of trauma as a temporal register of untimeliness. In doing so, the project relates the crisis of artistic expression, a crisis of language, and crisis of historical experience, a crisis of capitalism, drawing on Marx, and the critical theory/philosophy of time in the work of Peter Osborne, Theodor Adorno, and Catherine Malabou. At its core the research investigates to how literature negotiates these dual crises, what kinds of historical experience are precipitated by such writing, and to what extent they might open up ways of thinking other modes of being, and opportunities for 'working through the past'. The research builds on the trauma studies work of Ulrich Baer, Cathy Caruth, and Rebecca Comay, re-asserting the productivity of an interdisciplinary philosophical perspective for cultural interpretation and for understanding questions of trauma/history.
Bio
Sara Kelleher is a Social Work Ph.D. student in the School of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork. After receiving her Master of Social Work (MSW) from New York University, Sara earned her clinical social work license in the U.S. specializing in mental health and worked in the field for thirteen years. She is interested in the effects repeated exposure to trauma can have on those in helping professions, and in studying effective ways to support these workers. Her current research focuses on Secondary Traumatic Stress among Irish mental health social workers and testing interventions that may prevent or mitigate its effects. Sara is registered with CORU.
Proposal
Mental health providers who treat victims of trauma are frequently exposed to intense and powerful accounts of traumatic experiences. There is a growing awareness that such repeated vicarious exposure to trauma may lead providers to develop a cluster of psychological symptoms commonly referred to as Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). STS can cause a variety of short- and long-term disorders in providers, impacting worker well-being and increasing the likelihood that providers will leave the field prematurely. Social workers involved in front-line mental health care are particularly vulnerable to developing STS. For my Ph.D. project, I will conduct a critical, comprehensive review of existing literature on STS theory, research and interventions, examining our current understanding of the nature and causes of STS and exploring how organizational and individual factors may influence practitioners’ vulnerability to developing STS and their resilience in recovery. My research will also explore factors that insulate practitioners from developing STS and possible prevention interventions. This study of Irish mental health social workers and STS will measure the prevalence of STS and its impact upon this group, including potential predictors and protective factors. Finally, guided by the results of the literature review, I will choose and test an intervention that may prevent or mitigate the effects of STS.
Bio
My name is James Leonard, aged 35, and I am Youth Support Officer at Cork Education and Training Board. In the past I have worked in addiction and homeless services. I sit on the Board of Directors of Cork Simon Community and the Southern Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Force. I host a podcast called The Two Norries Podcast which is themed on mental health and social issues. I started out my road to a PhD with a further education course before completing a bachelor’s degree in Youth and Community Work and an MA in Criminology.
Research Proposal
My topic title is ‘How do people in recovery from substance dependence experience education across the life-course: a case study of Cork City’. The goal of this research is to chart the journey through education for people recovering from addiction and desisting from crime. When people seek to rebuild their lives after some hardship, they often go into further education and university. My aim to conduct life-course interviews to find out how the participants experienced education as children and adults. Why did it not work out in childhood, how is it going in adulthood? Further Education and Training (FET) is a brilliant medium for people reintegrating back into society. Whether it be community education, adult literacy or further education college, these courses can be the first step on to people fulfilling their potential. There are many reasons why education does not work out for someone first time around. Poverty, social exclusion, childhood trauma, and mental health all contribute to educational disadvantage. This research will hear about educational disadvantage, addiction, recovery and FET in Cork from the people who experienced them. ‘Nothing about us without us’.
Bio
I have worked in the field of Intellectual Disability for over 15 years; across a range of frontline, Management and Senior Management Roles within Irish Section 38 Disability Providers. Currently, I work in a Senior Management Quality & Development post within the Brothers of Charity Services Ireland- Southern Region.
As an avid believer in lifelong learning and an advocate for quality improvement, I have continued to enhance my education across my career. To date I have achieved a BA in Psychology, a MA by Research, a PG Diploma in Positive Approaches to Challenging Behaviour and a Higher Certificate in Applied Management for Human Services.
Proposal
The title of my research is: Preserving Quality of Life for Irish Adults with Mild to Moderate Intellectual Disabilities during and Post COVID 19 Using a Participatory Action Research Approach: A Longitudinal Review of Experiences throughout Crisis and Recovery.
This Employment Based PHD programme enables a unique opportunity to overlap my primary working role and strategic interest with an extremely topical academic focus; which can significantly build my expertise in rights based theory and allow for shared learning across the Intellectual Disability (ID) sector (leading to quality enhancement for those availing of services). The unprecedented phenomenon of Covid 19 has sparked a rich platform to collect data on the experiences of intellectually disabled people; as great momentum prior to the pandemic has been driving a rights based approach marked by normalised community engagement, as is the vision of a social model. All of which has been challenged by public health restrictions aimed at supressing the virus. As such, my proposed longitudinal research aims to explore the current, medium and longer-term impacts of COVID 19 on the quality of life of mild to moderate adults with ID availing of services from Disability Providers in the Republic of Ireland.
Bio
Doris Murphy completed her MA in Women’s Studies in University College Cork. Her thesis investigated the experiences of reproductive rights campaigners during the recent campaign to legalise abortion in Ireland, and underlying structures supporting feminist activism. Doris was the co-founder of Pro-Choice Wexford, a regional group which campaigned for abortion rights. She is an ardent supporter of the decriminalisation of sex work. Doris supports the abolition of Direct Provision, and advocates for full rights and appropriate healthcare for trans people. She provides space for marginalised people to tell their own stories, and is open to collaboration on projects in this area.
Research Proposal
I am researching the lived experiences of sex workers in Ireland. A key focus for this research is ‘care’ within sex work. My research will investigate the interplay between care and sex work using participatory methods and Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory to consider caring relationships that sex workers experience in various systems. The context for this research shifted immeasurably with the Covid-19 pandemic, when it became immediately apparent that sex workers have little or no recourse to care. Sex worker-led advocacy groups have been fighting for increased representation in decision-making arenas to inform policies pertaining to their lives. This research will contribute evidence to support this advocacy work. Given the dearth of research on the lived experience of sex workers in Ireland, I aim to address this gap by conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR) with sex workers, that includes walking interviews as a biographical research method (WIBM). PAR is a feminist epistemology which addresses power imbalances in research and is based upon the principles of inclusion, participation, valuing all voices, and action oriented interventions. PAR promotes ‘care-full’ research, which underpins my focus on care within sex work.
Bio
This year I moved from London to start my PhD in Sociology and Philosophy at UCC. I am researching issues of autonomy and deterritorialisation in relation to stateless peoples. After achieving a first-class degree at Aberystwyth University in International Politics, I obtained a master’s degree in Legal and Political from UCL. I spent the last couple of years working at a legal directory and with Extinction Rebellion in London, before being accepted into this research programme as an Excellence Scholar.
Research Proposal
My project considers the need for Rohingya people to exercise a model of non-territorial autonomy in order to encourage their leadership in finding solutions to their situation. Through qualitative media, document and interview analysis, I will assess the Rohingya people’s present dissociation from territory, their current lack of autonomy as stateless and displaced people, whilst identifying their coherence as a recognisable people. Through a perspective of deterritorialisation, as associated with Deleuze, this research will benefit from a dynamic lens, asserting a fluid conception of Rohingya, particularly in relation to land. Whilst recognising present dissociation from territory, this lens aims to account for a dynamic relationship referencing social and contextual developments. The Rohingya crisis is concurrent with the destabilising rise in statelessness. The continued deterioration of climate and ecological conditions, and increasing prevalence of uninhabitable territory, poses the urgent need for a revised set of rules around territory. It is essential that peoples most affected by these worsening conditions are included in discussions. To avoid a future where only those who presently own territory have a say in this reordering of territorial systems, a framework to enhance the leadership of stateless peoples, such as the Rohingya, ought to be conceived.
Bio
Melissa Shiels attended UCC as a mature student and completed her Bachelor of Arts degree (History Major). As an undergraduate, she was awarded a Quercus scholarship, Student of the Year from the School of History, as well as the Mansion House Prize from the NUI, the John A. Murphy Prize for Best BA Dissertation, and the MacCurtain Cullen Essay Prize from the Women's History Association of Ireland
She is a Heritage Expert on the Heritage in Schools panel, visiting national schools all over Ireland and supporting the national school curriculum by bringing history to life through presenting costumed history demonstrations.
Research Proposal
This research will expand the converging studies of material culture, Irish cultural expressions, and Irish social and political actors in the wider definitions of Renaissance phenomenon. Recent scholarship has widened the net to include aspects of material culture as evidence for Irish participation in the Renaissance and the expansion of Irish cultural expressions. Cultural historians have studied the rise of fashion, the critique and regulation of clothing, and the role of apparel in the formation of the Renaissance theatre of power. Likewise, the study of the elevation of ritualised gift-giving in Renaissance Courts has shed light on the ways in which diplomacy and politics were negotiated. This research will explore the intersection of clothing and gift-giving for political ends in the Tudor conquest of Ireland. Crucially, examining formal and informal gift exchange between Irish female political actors and the Crown reveals elite Irish women’s strategies to secure dynastic protection and promotion for their natal and marital dynasties, shedding light on the heretofore overlooked extent of women’s influence and participation in international politics. Strategically given gifts of apparel in sixteenth century political intrigues are a useful lens through which to examine the competing ideologies of the Crown and Irish political actors.
Bio
Maeve holds a BA in Archaeology and History and an MA in Archaeology from UCC. She joined the National Museum of Ireland in 2001 as a curatorial researcher on the Unpublished Burials Project. Since 2004, as Assistant Keeper in the Irish Antiquities Division, she has engaged in a wide range of curatorial tasks including fieldwork and excavation, lecturing and outreach. Maeve was appointed Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland in July 2017, taking responsibility for the Museum’s archaeological collections. Maeve’s interests are in the early medieval and Viking collections and in the archaeology of death and burial in Ireland.
Research Topic
The study for which the Scholarship was awarded will focus on the archaeological evidence for the practices of feasting and dining in early medieval Ireland through an analysis of a range of vessel types. The corpus to be examined includes copper-alloy bowls and basins, decorative wooden pails, ladles, strainers and drinking horns. While there have been studies of individual artefacts within this group, this will be the first time that this body of material has been examined collectively. This thesis will primarily focus on the function and use of these high status vessels in a secular context by the wealthier classes in Ireland. The use of these vessels in a liturgical context will also be examined, given the fact that some have been found on, or close to, ecclesiastical sites, such as Derrynaflan, Co. Tipperary. The third main aspect of the thesis will be a discussion of the occurrence of these vessels in Viking-age graves in both Ireland and Britain and in Scandinavia, principally Norway. This study will result in the first catalogue of an important category of early medieval objects and will provide the first comprehensive account of feasting material culture in early medieval Ireland.
Bio
My name is Maggie Gillen and I am a postgraduate student from the US. I am most passionate about equitable youth opportunities. As a teacher, a mentor, a soccer coach, a camp counselor, and a tutor, I have taken on many roles in the lives of children. Within these roles, I have observed the importance of having to adjust my approach with children at various developmental levels, from different ethnic, racial, and socio-economic backgrounds, and with varying degrees of motivation to learn. These experiences have led me to pursue my Masters in Applied Psychology
Research Proposal
Through my dissertation, I plan to study best practices that foster a healthy and equitable social-emotional development for children in academic settings. For example, I am very interested in the use of restorative justice approaches to conflict and discipline as opposed to the punitive response often seen in school systems.
Bio
Finn Longman has a BA in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from the University of Cambridge. During their undergraduate studies, they specialised in medieval Irish literature, with a particular focus on the Ulster Cycle. Their final dissertation was titled, “A beardless boy: ambiguities of gender and sexuality in Táin Bó Cúailnge and related tales.” After graduating in 2018, they continued to independently research the Táin and the character of Cú Chulainn, while holding jobs in digitisation, bookselling, and finally as the graduate trainee librarian at Christ’s College Cambridge. Finn also writes fiction, and is represented by Jessica Hare at The Agency (London) Limited.
Research Proposal
The focus of Finn’s MA thesis is the character of Láeg mac Riangabra, Cú Chulainn’s charioteer and closest companion. Láeg is a major but neglected figure in Ulster Cycle texts, and closer analysis of his role will contribute to our understanding of intertextuality, the development of the Ulster Cycle over time, and our understanding of Cú Chulainn.
Bio
An experienced business analyst, consultant, and project manager, my university studies include a B.E. in Enginering (Civil) from UCC in 1994, and a M.B.A. from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in 2002. In recent years, I returned to university education and I focused on Spanish language acquisition by completing the H.Dip in Arts (Spanish) in 2017. I am currently training as a translator from Spanish to English by taking a Masters in Translation Studies at UCC. My translation interests include literature, commercial, educational, and technical translations, and I have a strong interest in translation technology.
Research Proposal
My research involves the translation of an extract from Éxodo by Silvia Mistral, a diary account of the author's exodus journey towards the end of the Spanish Civil War from Barcelona in late January 1939, and on through France to Mexico. Research will be carried out on translation issues.
Bio
I have been attending UCC since 2016, during which I completed a joint honours BA in the Study of Religions and Geography. Throughout my BA, I developed a special interest in the study of Religions. Paganism, is an area which I find extremely interesting and I believe it is a worthy area of research, most especially in the changing religious climate in Ireland today. This year, I will be completing an MA in Anthropology which will allow me to enhance my knowledge of anthropological and ethnographic research which I will utilise in carrying out research on the lived realities of pagan practitioners
Research Proposal
I will focus on the role of social media in the lived realities of modern Paganism, most notably witchcraft in Ireland. This fieldwork will address three key questions: how social media has revived and remoulded modern witchcraft in Ireland, how this shapes the lived realities of those who practice witchcraft and why this has occurred.
Bio
My name is Sarah O’ Leary and I am a current student in the Professional Master of Education (Year one) at UCC. I am studying to become a post-primary teacher for Irish and French. I have always had a passion for languages which led me to complete the BA World Languages for my undergraduate degree, also in UCC. I love working with young people, a passion I have developed from summers spent working in Irish colleges in the Gaeltacht. I want to pass on these passions through teaching and inspire students to learn languages and see how valuable they are.
Bio
I graduated in Social Science in 2014 and had plans to take 9 months off to gain a bit more experience between my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Well that plan turned into 5 years as I ended up living in Dublin for 3 years working in various roles with the Dublin Simon Community. After that I moved to Vancouver in Canada and worked as an outreach worker for another homeless organisation called Lookout Society. Eventually I got back to Cork to UCC where it all started to pursue the Masters of Social Worker (MSW).
Research Proposal
To establish the current trends of applications to the housing charity S.H.A.R.E. Is there a view to better plan for the future: is there a need for the S.H.A.R.E model in years to come? Part of the research will map current services available to over 60s on housing lists and provide a demographic context of Cork City housing trends.
Bio
My name is Rory Paul. I was born on 5th February 1998 in Dorchester, Dorset, in the United Kingdom. When I was six years, old, my family moved to County Cork in Ireland, moving first to Ballincollig and then to Bandon, where I currently live. I completed by primary education at Scoil Barra and my secondary education at Coláiste Choilm. My BA was a joint honours in History and Greek and Roman Civilisation. I am currently working at Caulfield’s Supervalu, located in the Riverview Shopping Centre in Bandon. My interests include history, reading and fast cars.
Proposal
I have had a deep and interest in ancient history, particularly that of the Romans, for many years. This MA programme will allow me to further my knowledge of the political and military aspects of the early Imperial Period of Roman history, as this is a period that I have not yet studied in detail.