Projects per year
Personal profile
Teaching
PGT
Course Director, MA in Public History
MHY7089 History and its Audiences
MHY7091 Case Studies in Public History
UG
HIS3140 Belfast: Surviving the Victorian City
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 and was elected to the Society's Council in 2022. She was President of the Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland 2018-22, is a Director of the Irish Museum Association and a Governor of the Linen Hall Library. She also serves on the project board of a major redevelopment of the Ulster Museum's permanent galleries.
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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Dealing with difficult pasts: the role of public history in post-conflict Northern Ireland
Purdue, O., 01 Sep 2020, In: Studia Hibernica. 46, 1, p. 91-97 7 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile261 Downloads (Pure) -
‘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, In: Cultural and Social History. 19, 5, p. 567-585 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile44 Downloads (Pure) -
‘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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Nineteenth-century NIMBYs, or What the Neighbour Saw? Poverty, surveillance, and the boarding-out of Poor Law Children in late nineteenth-century Belfast
Purdue, O., 08 Oct 2020, In: Family and Community History. 23, 2, p. 119-135 17 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile65 Downloads (Pure) -
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
Prizes
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AHRC Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NBCDTP) Studentship (second supervisor)
Purdue, Olwen (Recipient), 2022
Prize: Other distinction
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CAST (Co-operative Awards in Science and Technology) Doctoral Studentship
Purdue, Olwen (Recipient) & Lilley, Keith (Recipient), 2022
Prize: Other distinction
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Elected to the Council of the Royal Historical Society
Purdue, Olwen (Recipient), 2023
Prize: Election to learned society
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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
Activities
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Conflict, trauma, memorialisation
Olwen Purdue (Organiser)
Jun 2023Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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Royal Historical Society (External organisation)
Olwen Purdue (Board Member)
2023 → 2028Activity: Membership types › Membership of external research organisation
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University of Luxembourg
Olwen Purdue (Visiting researcher)
2023 → …Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Research and Teaching at External Organisation
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National Council on Public History conference
Olwen Purdue (Speaker)
Mar 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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Bridging the Atlantic 2023
Olwen Purdue (Member of the organising committee)
Nov 2023Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
Press/Media
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Press article on the launch of book - 'The first great charity of this town'
Olwen Purdue & Mary McAleese
21/11/2022
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Other
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