Rachel Barrett
Rachel is an archive professional and researcher specialising in nineteenth-century Poor Law in relation to London and the Irish. She has delivered numerous talks on the New Poor Law and workhouses, and co-curated the Lost Victorian City and Londoners on Trial exhibition at The London Archives. Her current research explores the removal of Irish paupers from London. Beyond poor law, Rachel also researches Ireland’s coastal signal stations, with a particular focus on the history of Brow Head in West Cork.
Lewis Baston
Lewis has written on British politics and the electoral landscape for more than thirty years, from polling analysis for the Financial Times to election results analysis for the Guardian. From 2003 to 2010 he was Research Director for the Electoral Reform Society, and from 2011 to 2015 he was Research Fellow at Democratic Audit before becoming a full-time writer. He has appeared in many print and broadcast media in the UK, including as the border expert on Tim Marshall’s series about borderlands for The Compass. His critically acclaimed book Borderlines was published by Hodder Press in 2024 and went on to be a The Rest is History Book of the Month, and a Waterstones Book of the Year.
Dr Leanne Calvert
Leanne is a historian of the family, gender and sexualities and her work focuses on Presbyterians in Ireland and North America between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She is currently based at the University of Limerick, where she directs the MA History of Family programme. Leanne has published extensively on family life in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland. Her work uses Presbyterian church court minutes, family papers and objects - especially hairy objects - to explore families in the past. Leanne's talk for us emerges from her recently published book, Pious and Promiscuous. Life, love and family in Presbyterian Ulster, which tells the warts-and-all story of Presbyterian family life in Ulster. Her talk will focus on 'tales of marital disorder' and will cover themes including adulterous affairs, runaway spouses, and domestic conflict.
Stephen Collins
Stephen is a political columnist with the Irish Times and was previously political editor of the newspaper for over a decade. He was educated at Oatlands College, Stillorgan, and later at UCD where he graduated with an MA in Politics. He started as a journalist with the Irish Press group and was political correspondent of the Sunday Press and later the Sunday Tribune before moving to the Irish Times. He has written a number of books about Irish political history, including, The Power Game: Ireland Under Fianna Fail, (2002), Breaking the Mould: How the PDs changed Irish Politics (2006) and Saving the State: Fine Gael from Collins to Varadkar (2020). His most recent book is Ireland’s Call: How Brexit Got Done.
Professor Gabriel Cooney
Gabriel is emeritus professor of Celtic Archaeology, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Gabriel’s research interests focus on the Neolithic, particularly the use of stone, and on mortuary practices in prehistory. Books include Death in Irish Prehistory (2023) and Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland (2000). Gabriel was the founding editor of Archaeology Ireland. He is an expert member of the ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management. In 2021 he was awarded an honorary OBE in recognition of service to heritage in Northern Ireland.
Iain Dale
Iain presents the Evening Show on Britain’s LBC Radio and has twice been Radio Presenter of the Year. Ian is a regular pundit on Good Morning Britain, Politics Live and Newsnight. He co-hosted the award winning ‘For the Many’ podcast and now presents ‘Where Politis Meets History’ with Tessa Dunlop and ‘Iain Dale All Talk’. Iain writes for various publications including the New Statesman, the iNewspaper and the Daily Telegraph He spent 20 years in publishing and runs online bookshop www.politicos.co.uk. He is Patron of the Fowey Literary Festival. Iain has written or edited more than 60 books, the latest being The DICTATORS, WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG, THE PRIME MINISTERS, THE PRESIDENTS, ON THIS DAY IN POLITICS, KINGS & QUEENS and BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGNS 1830-2019. In June 2025 his biography of Margaret Thatcher was published by Swift Press. He is a non-executive director of the Lending Standards Board and an ambassador for the Royal Osteoporosis Society and Diabetes UK. He is visiting professor of politics and broadcasting at the University of East Anglia, and in July 2025 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent for services to political broadcasting.
Myles Dungan
Myles is an Irish broadcaster and author. He has presented many arts programmes on RTE Radio and has also been a sports broadcaster on RTE Television. Since 2010 he has been the presenter of "The History Show" on RTÉ Radio One. He is the author of a number of works of fiction and non-fiction.
Dr Deirdre Foley
Deirdre is a historian of modern Ireland with a particular interest in the legal and social status of women in twentieth-century Ireland. She is a former Roy Foster Irish Government Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and has previously held Research Ireland postdoctoral awards at University College Cork and Trinity College Dublin. Currently she is Principal Investigator of the Research Ireland Pathway Project, 'TÚS: Pregnancy and Giving Birth in Ireland, 1950-2020' at the Department of History, Trinity College Dublin.
Hester Grant
Hester Grant studied modern history at Christ Church, Oxford before training and practising as a barrister. She later gave up her legal career to pursue her interest in eighteenth-century history. Her first book, The Good Sharps, a biography of a remarkable eighteenth-century family, was published by Chatto & Windus in 2020. Her second, The Twitnam Summer, an account of Jonathan Swift’s visit to England in the summer of 1726 and the writing and publication of Gulliver’s Travels was published by HarperCollins in June 2026. She lives in London and Suffolk, where she has recently restored a mediaeval priests’ college.
Mark Hennessy
Mark Hennessy is Ireland and Britain Editor of The Irish Times. He is a former News editor, London editor and political correspondent. He also oversees Common Ground, a major Irish Times project that examines past, present and future relationships on the island of Ireland; between the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain, how changes in Britain could impact here, and the role the diaspora could play in the years ahead
Oscar Kelly
Oscar is a recent history graduate with a Masters from Uppsala University, Sweden. His research focused on the founding of Castletownshend, a story most often linked to the arrival of Colonel Richard Townsend in the mid-seventeenth century. Yet a largely forgotten colony at Glenbarrahane, just two kilometres along the coast, predated the village. Having grown up on Reen Peninsula, 400 meters across the harbour, he has spent many summers looking out over the bay pondering what rich local histories have become lost to time. He hopes to bring one of these stories to light through reconstructing the rise and oblivion of this forgotten settlement and what impact it might have on Castletownshend's founding story.
Sam McBride
Sam is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent newspapers. Prior to that he was Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter. He has written for the i newspaper and The Economist and has made a BBC film about the Northern Bank robbery. Sam studied English literature and newspaper journalism at Ulster University before starting his career at the Belfast Telegraph in 2006. He is author of The Sunday Times bestseller Burned: The Inside Story of the ‘Cash-for-Ash’ Scandal He is a regular broadcaster, providing analysis for local, national and international audiences. His most recent book, published with Fintan O’Toole, is For and Against a United Ireland. It was recently awarded the 29th Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.
Professor Leanne McCormick and Professor Elaine Farrell
Leanne is Professor of Modern Irish History at Ulster University, and co-chair of the Independent Truth Recovery Panel for Northern Ireland. Elaine is a social historian and Professor of Irish History at Queen's University Belfast. Together they lead the Bad Bridget project, which focuses on Irish women in North America who found themselves on the wrong side of the law in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project includes a podcast, #1 best-selling book, Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women (Penguin Sandycove, 2023), and an exhibition at the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh (2022-2026). You can catch up with them on Instagram @BadBridgetbook
Paddy McGuinness CMG OBE
Paddy works with business and governments globally on Geopolitical, National Security, Regulatory and Technology issues. He is Senior Advisor at Brunswick Group and co-founder of Oxford Digital Health and Venari Security. He previously served as UK Deputy National Security Adviser (Intelligence, Security and Resilience) for Prime Ministers Cameron then May, overseeing national risk assessment and crisis response to all hazards and threats. He led programmes on cyber security and counter hostile state activity including Investment Security. He had a particular focus on relations with Ireland and now advises the Azure Forum for contemporary security strategy. Earlier he served in the UK Foreign Service in Yemen, the UAE, Egypt and Italy and lead on Counter-Terrorism, Cyber, the Middle East, Iran and counter-proliferation, From 2019-24 He was Special Adviser to the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
Mark Mellett
Mark is a retired Irish Naval Service vice admiral and was Chief of Staff of Ireland’s defence forces from 2015-21.
Cormac Moore
Cormac is founder and director of the history consulting company History Link. He has published widely on modern Irish history including the books The Root of All Evil: The Irish Boundary Commission (2025) and Birth of the Border: The Impact of Partition in Ireland (2019). He is a columnist with the Irish News as well as editor of its daily ‘On This Day’ segment. He is co-host with Tim McGarry of The Irish History Boys podcast show.
Dr Alexander Morrison
Alexander is Fellow and Tutor in History at New College, Oxford. He was previously Professor of History at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan, Lecturer in Imperial History at the University of Liverpool, and a Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he completed his doctorate in 2005. He is the author of The Russian Conquest of Central Asia. A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814 - 1914 (2020) and of Russian Rule in Samarkand 1868-1910. A Comparison with British India (2008)
Professor Gary Murphy
Gary is Professor of Politics in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He regularly appears in the print and broadcast media and is a columnist with the Sunday Times. He is the author of a widely acclaimed biography of the former Taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey. His new book, a biography of another former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, will be published later this year.
Dr Éimear O’Connor
Éimear is Director of Collections and Access with the National Museum of Ireland, and former Director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig. Her ‘mastermind’ topic is the life and work of Irish artist, Seán Keating (1889-1977). Her biography of the artist, Seán Keating: Art, Politics, and Building the Irish Nation was published by Irish Academic Press in 2013. O’Connor undertook major research in New York Public Library for her next book, Art, Ireland, and the Irish Diaspora. Chicago, Dublin, New York: Culture, Connections and Controversies (2020), which was awarded the inaugural Lawrence J. McCaffrey Prize for a book on Irish America by the American Conference of Irish Studies (2021). O’Connor has published chapters, articles, catalogue essays and reviews on Irish art and culture for publications in Ireland, England, America, and France, and has lectured in cultural institutions and universities at home and abroad. O’Connor’s role in Sit, Stand, Smoke, was not to act at all, but to be herself, and to give voice to the real meaning of Keating’s life’s work as illuminated in her deeply researched biography of the artist.
Dr Beatrice Penati
Beatrice is Senior Lecturer in Russian and Eurasian History at the University of Liverpool. She previously taught at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan, and the University of Manchester, and completed her doctorate at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, in 2008. She is the author of Rural History of Soviet Central Asia: Land Reform and Agricultural Change in Early Soviet Uzbekistan (2025).
Zoe Reid
Zoë is Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Archives, Ireland. Since establishing the Conservation Department in 2002, she has shaped national standards for the preservation and sustainable access of State records. With over 25 years’ experience, she is widely published and has presented internationally on conservation strategy and archival preservation. Zoë leads Public Services and Collection Care and has been involved with major exhibition and outreach projects, including The Treaty 1921, Ireland at the League of Nations and Society and State at Dublin Castle. She was a core member of the team leading the preparation and public programme for the release of the 1926 Census.
Dr Sonja Tiernan
Sonja is President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland and the national coordinator of the Irish Humanities Alliance at the Royal Irish Academy. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy. Sonja has published widely in gender and women’s history including the bestselling volumes Irish Women’s Speeches published by UCD Press in 2021 & 2022. Most recently her biography Eva Gore-Booth: Irish Radical Poet, Rebel and Reformer has been republished by Manchester University Press in 2026. Sonja has dedicated many years to researching the life and works of Eva Gore-Booth, a woman of aristocratic birth who broke class boundaries to live and work amongst the working classes and endeavoured to dissolve gender boundaries through her radical writings and politics.
Professor Adam Tomkins
Adam has been John Millar Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow since 2003, having previously taught at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford (2000-03) and at King’s College London (1991-2000). He specialises in constitutional law. He has teaching and research interests both in British and in comparative constitutional law. He also writes about British constitutional history and about the history of constitutional ideas. His latest book, On the Law of Speaking Freely, was published in May 2025 by Hart. Altogether he has written six books and edited or co-edited seven collections of essays on constitutional law. Among his books are two of the leading works on the British constitution: Public Law (OUP, 2003) and British Government and the Constitution (CUP, 7th ed 2011). He has worked as a legal adviser to the House of Lords and as a constitutional adviser to the Secretary of State for Scotland. He has given evidence to numerous parliamentary committees (in Westminster, Cardiff, and Holyrood). He has worked with leading think tanks in London, Edinburgh and Brussels. For two years he was a regular columnist at the Herald, and he has in the past written for the Times, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the New Statesman, and the Scotsman, among others. In 2023 he was appointed as a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Scotland Committee.
Adam has also been engaged in front-line politics. He was a member of the Smith Commission in 2014 and was thereafter elected as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, where he served from 2016-21. Among other appointments in the Parliament, Adam was deputy convener of the Finance and Constitution Committee and convener of the Justice Committee.
Professor Ben Tonra
Ben MRIA is Full Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations. At UCD he teaches, researches and publishes in European foreign, security and defence policy, Irish foreign, security and defence policy and International Relations theory. Outside the university Ben is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and has previously served as the chair of the Academy's Standing Committee on International Affairs. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Azure Forum, a Dublin-based think tank on security and defence studies and is a Director and Secretary (voluntary/non-remunerated) with the Irish Defence and Security Association (IDSA) CLG. He worked previously at the Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, the University of Dublin (Trinity College) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Washington DC. Professor Tonra is a graduate of the University of Limerick (BA and MA) and completed his doctoral studies at the University of Dublin (Trinity College).
