Projects per year
Personal profile
Teaching
PGT
Course Director, MA in Public History
Teach:
MHY7077 Public History Internships (MA in History)
MHY7092 Public History Internships (MA in Public History)
MHY7089 History and its Audiences
MHY7091 Case Studies in Public History
UG
Convenor: HAP2001 Northern Ireland Conflict and Paths to Peace (interdisciplinary module for QUB+GWU students)
Teach:
HIS2011 Politics and Society in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
HIS2012 Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century Ireland
Research Interests
Professor Olwen Purdue specialises in the social and economic history of nineteenth and twentieth-century Ireland. Her research focuses on poverty, welfare and public health in the industrial city - she is currently working on the history of child welfare under the Irish Poor Law, exploring how its systems and processes reponded to the challenges of the rapidly-growing city of Belfast, and how poor families engaged with and experienced these processes. She has also worked on the history of landed estates in the north of Ireland from the end of the Famine until the onset of the Northern Troubles
Professor Purdue is also actively engaged in research and teaching in Public History, something she has been instrumental in introducing to Queen's University. She is founder and Director of the Centre for Public History, and of the MA in Public History. She works closely with the cultural and heritage sectors across Northern Ireland in research, teaching and public engagement. She was specialist historical advisor for Titanic Belfast and a member of the advisory group for the Ulster Museum's Irish history exhibition and its Troubles and Beyond gallery. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Museums Association.
Professor Purdue is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, member of the Royal Historical Society's Public History Prize panel and judge for the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland's Medical Humanities Award. She is international editor for the Public Historian journal and series editor of Liverpool University Press's Nineteenth-Century Ireland series. She is President of the Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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Network
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R1080SES: Network for Education in Divided Societies: Development Award AH/T005491/1
Gallagher, T., Duffy, G., Hughes, J., Purdue, O. & Turner, R.
03/07/2019 → …
Project: Research
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R1028HAP: Our voices: public history in Jordan
Purdue, O., Harding, S. & Sadler, N.
19/03/2019 → …
Project: Research
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R1047HIS: Welfare and public health in Belfast and the north of Ireland 1800 -1973
Gray, P., Atcheson, R., Laragy, G., Lucey, S., Purdue, O. & Purdue, O.
01/08/2011 → 31/10/2015
Project: Research
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‘A Gigantic System of Casual Pauperism’: the Contested Role of the Workhouse in Late Nineteenth-Century Belfast
Purdue, O., May 2014, The Welfare State and the 'Deviant Poor' in Europe, 1870-1933. Althammer, B., Gestrich, A. & Gründler, J. (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, p. 42-57 16 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites, 1878-1960
Purdue, O., Jun 2009, UCD Press. 320 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Belfast, the emerging city: 1850-1914
Purdue, O. (ed.), Nov 2012, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 304 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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‘Please Pardon me for Taking the Liberty’: Poverty Letters as Negotiating Spaces in 1920s and 1930s Belfast and Dublin
Earner-Byrne, L. & Purdue, O., 18 Jun 2022, (Early online date) In: Cultural and Social History.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile3 Downloads (Pure)
Prizes
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ESRC NINE Ph.D. Research Funding, (RMA53276), £80,000
Palmer, Mark (Recipient) & Purdue, Olwen (Recipient), Oct 2021
Prize: Other distinction
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Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Purdue, Olwen (Recipient), 2017
Prize: Election to learned society
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Activities
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I was invited to deliver a research paper at Boston College entitled: '"The price of our loyalty": tenant farmers and land purchase in the north of Ireland'
Olwen Purdue (Invited speaker)
Sep 2013Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Keynote lecture, Irish Landlords and Tenants conference, NUI Galway. 'The price of our loyalty: the 1925 Northern Ireland Land Act'
Olwen Purdue (Keynote speaker)
Sep 2013Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Keynote lecture, Landed estates in Ireland conference, NUI Galway. 'Northern perspectives: challenges, opportunities and the Ulster landed estate'
Olwen Purdue (Keynote speaker)
Jun 2013Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Invited research paper at German Historical Institute seminar series: ‘"A den of drunkenness, immorality and vice": public representation of the workhouse and the poor in late nineteenth-century Belfast'
Olwen Purdue (Invited speaker)
Feb 2010Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Olwen Purdue (President)
2022Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
Press / Media
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Historical Consultancy on 'The Big House Reborn'
01/04/2015 → 06/06/2015
2 Media contributions
Press/Media: Expert Comment
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Ten Best Museums in Northern Ireland
02/07/2014
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities