Research, writing and public history.

Dr Gillian Kenny is a historian, author and public speaker whose work brings Ireland’s medieval and early modern past to audiences through books, talks, broadcasting and digital media. She is Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of History at University College Dublin and a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. Her research explores women’s lives, family, power and cultural exchange, alongside the history of magic, witchcraft, belief and folklore.

Public history is central to Gillian’s work. She gives talks and workshops on subjects ranging from Irish witch trials and the banshee to charms, curses and everyday encounters with the supernatural. She has appeared on The Rest Is History and BBC Radio 4’s You’re Dead to Me, as well as television documentaries and other podcasts. She writes Unruly Ireland, a Substack exploring the overlooked lives and unexpected stories of Ireland’s past, and is co-host of the new podcast Unruly History with Dr Emma Nagouse.

Her publications include Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Women in Ireland, c.1170–1540 and the co-authored Historical Knowth and its Hinterland, for which she researched and wrote the medieval section for the Royal Irish Academy. She is currently writing a new biography of Gráinne O’Malley and A Social and Cultural History of Ireland, c.400–1600, both for Yale University Press.