Maurice Casey

I am a historian of intimacy and revolutionary politics in early twentieth century Europe. I am currently a visiting researcher at QUB.

I define myself primarily as a historian of interwar radicalism, although my work has bridged different fields including Irish history, the history of intimacy, queer history, public history and the social history of ideas.

I specialise in multiarchival studies that draw on sources in several languages. Research languages in which I am conversant or developing a proficiency include Russian, Spanish and German. My work also involves tracing private family archives.

My first book Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals was published in 2024 by Footnote Press. It is the first English-language account of the Communist International's Moscow dormitory. It drew on material in several languages from more than twenty-five different archives.

I curated two exhibitions, Out in the World: Ireland’s LGBTQ+ Diaspora and Revolutionary Routes: Ireland and the Black Atlantic, which opened at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin in 2021 and 2022 respectively. In an effort to make a lifelong hobby into a professional interest, I am developing a new research focus in the field of history and video games.

My research has featured in outlets including: The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner, The Guardian, Publishers' Weekly, Contingent Magazine, Meduza, Jacobin, Tribune, Monocle, History Today, History Ireland, History Extra, TG4, RTÉ Radio One, Newstalk, BBC Radio 4.

I contribute to both undergraduate and postgraduate courses at QUB. Much of my teaching focuses on the QUB MA in Public History. I designed a module on 'Digital Technologies and Digital Pasts' that I taught in 2024.

I currently supervise a number of MA students and I have previous experience supervising undergraduates. 

Scholarships and Fellowships

From 2018 to 2019 I was a Fulbright Scholar based at Stanford University. Most recently, in early 2025, I was the inaugural Horkan Visiting Fellow in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.

Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals

I transformed my PhD research into a trade book that has found a wide audience, especially within Ireland.

Hotel Lux was shortlisted for History Book of the Year at the 2024 Irish Book Awards. I was the only debut author nominated in my category and the only historian without a permanent contract.

Scholarly journal the Russian Review described it as an "extraordinary book" while press reviewers have described it as an "unexpected treasure" and a "wonderfully human biography". The Irish Times noted that it "lights its subjects with such sensitivity that it makes much of contemporary history look ghostly by comparison".