Mental health, history of occupational therapy, history of psychiatry, occupational science,  impact and and legacy of political violence, politics of identity, retirement, school inclusion, anthropology of South Asia, medical anthropology

Innovation in healthcare, research methods, occupational science

I am Head of the School of Allied Health and Professor of Occupational Therapy at the University of Limerick.

I have backgrounds in Social Anthropology (PhD, University of Cambridge and MA, University of Alberta), Occupational Therapy (BScOT, University of Alberta and DipCOT, St. Joseph's College of Occupational Therapy, Dublin) and History (MA, University of Limerick). I have held positions at the University of Central Lancashire (1998-2007) and Leipzig University (based at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu) (2007-2008). I joined the University of Limerick in 2009.

My research is situated at the intersection of anthropology, history and occupational therapy, and my geographic focus is Ireland and Nepal. My enduring research interests are mental health, the history of occupational therapy in psychiatry, ethnohistory, the politics of identity and the impact and legacy of political violence.

I have undertaken research on a range of themes including patients' and healthcare professionals' experiences of a COVID-19 field hospital; oral healing traditions and religion, the written works and photography of an American World War 1 occupational therapist in France, retirement and school inclusion.

My earlier work on the everyday lives of individuals in uncertain and confining circumstances and how they make sense of and navigate the worlds they find themselves in led me to explore the experiences of people in forensic mental health settings in Ireland and of villagers during Nepal’s decade-long civil war (1996-2006). This resulted in an extensive body of published materials, including a monograph titled Maoists at the Hearth: Everyday Life in Nepal’s Civil War, which examined the impact of civil war on social life, cultural practices and well-being.

My current research returns to themes in the history of psychiatry on which my co-authored book A Place in the Country: Three Counties Asylum was based. I am exploring the professionalisation of occupational therapy in Ireland, focusing on the politics of identity, rivalry, and differing interpretations of the past—similar to my previous work with indigenous healers/religious specialists in Nepal. Exploring therapeutic practices in Irish psychiatric hospitals during the early to mid-20th century, I analyse the structures that shaped these practices and the dynamics that led to the professionalisation of some practitioners while others were overlooked. I am currently working on a monograph on the ‘forgotten’.

Building on my experience of collaborating with museums in the UK, Switzerland, and Nepal, I lead a mainly digital occupational therapy archive and work with international partners to promote critical scholarship in the history of occupational therapy and the development and preservation of threatened occupational therapy archives.

I have successfully secured competitive funding from various national and international sources, including the Irish Research Council, the National Council for Special Education, the British Academy and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.