Karol Mullaney Dignam

My research interests lie in the cultural and social history of Irish music in the long nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on processes of individual and collective cultural identity formation in country houses, landed elites, gender, education, recreation, and nation building, as well as contemporary public history narratives and practices.

My work on the social life and musical cultures of country houses and landed estates in Ireland has been funded by the Office of Public Works, Irish Research Council (Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellowship; New Foundations Networking Grant), the Royal Irish Academy (Charlemont Award), and the AHSS Faculty at the University of Limerick.

I am a Member of the European Network for Country House and Estate Research (ENCOUNTER), and Member of the international Sound Heritage network leading the Irish Research Council-funded Sound Heritage Ireland project an inter-sectoral forum for communication and collaboration on issues concerning the sounding of historic properties with a particular focus on music in country houses. 

As well as contributions to local and national radio and television programmes, my work includes public history and heritage interpretation projects with the Office of Public Works including a travelling exhibition on pioneering Victorian Irish photographer W.D. Hemphill, and the Bryce House restoration project at Garinish Island in Co. Cork, specifically its reinterpretation as a historic house museum.

I currently teach in the following areas:

Postgraduate:

• public history theory and practice, narratives and practices
• digital public history: culture and communication
• public history work placement and preparation  public history work-based/integrated reflective practices
• public history and cultural heritage research: critical reading and analysis;
• research sources, methods and approaches
• public history and cultural heritage dissertation preparation and writing

Undergraduate

• Irish political, cultural and social histories, 1700s-1900s
• Specialist elective: The country house in Ireland: class, gender, culture

I am a cultural historian, and Director of the MA Public History and; Cultural Heritage programme at the University of Limerick, Ireland. I research and publish on cultural and social histories of Irish music, country houses and landed estates, c.1750-c.1950, cultural nationalism and politics pre- and post-Irish independence, and heritage interpretation and historical practices in the public realm. I teach on topics related to my research at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels with modules on class, gender and culture at the country house in Ireland, long nineteenth-century Irish history, public history theory and practice, and digital public history culture and communications.   I am an experienced research supervisor and welcome all enquiries from potential undergraduate, MA and PhD students, as well as postdoctoral colleagues, interested in working on these topics.