Dr Máirín MacCarron awarded the NUI Irish Historical Research Prize

12 Jan 2022

Dr Máirín MacCarron, Lecturer in Digital Humanities at UCC (http://research.ucc.ie/profiles/A014/M.MacCarron@ucc.ie), has won the NUI Irish Historical Research Prize 2021 for her book Bede and Time: Computus, Theology and History in the Early Medieval World (London: Routledge 2020): https://www.routledge.com/Bede-and-Time-Computus-Theology-and-History-in-the-Early-Medieval-World/MacCarron/p/book/9781032088945. 

The Irish Historical Research Prize is awarded in alternate years for the best new work of historical research with a significant Irish dimension. MacCarron’s Bede and Time examines the development of time reckoning and medieval science (computus) in Britain and Ireland in the early middle ages. In particular, it contextualises the innovative contribution of the Northumbrian monk, Bede (c. 673–735), who popularised the Anno Domini chronological system still in use today. The book has been described as ‘a welcome and fresh introduction to a key theme in Bede’s thought’ (Early Medieval Europe 29.4, 2021). 

Máirín is a graduate of University College Cork where her PhD was supervised by Dr Jennifer O’Reilly (RIP) in the School of History. Bede and Time is the major output of her NUI / Dr Garret FitzGerald postdoctoral fellowship, which she held at NUI Galway under the mentorship of Professor Emeritus Dáibhí Ó Cróinín. Prior to her current role, she worked at the University of Sheffield, and was Co-Investigator on the interdisciplinary research project Women, Conflict and Peace: Gendered Networks in Early Medieval Narratives funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2018–21).

For the official announcement as well as a recording of the NUI Awards ceremony for 2021, see: http://www.nui.ie/news/2021/Awards2021/Ceremony.asp