Sean's teaching interests include working class family and community, oral history, gender history, consumerism, the social history of modern Britain and the social history of modern Belfast.

Sean's work on the history of the car was part of the shift in British social history away from the study of production towards the analysis of consumption and consumers. Subsequent projects continued this interest. These analyzed the origins of men's consumer magazines, the social and business history of mail order catalogues, the history of working class experiences of consumer credit and debt, and the origins and history of `joyriding.' His research has been supported by grants from the ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust (twice), and the AHRC. Sean's most recently published monograph is The Politics of Consumer Credit in the UK, 1938-1992 (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is currently completing a monograph for Palgrave Pivot on the history of joyriding.  January 2021 saw the publication of a research project that was commissioned by the Department of Health (NI), examining the history of mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries in Northern Ireland. This research (with co-investigator Leanne McCormick of UU) details the Northern Ireland experience of institutions that have provided so much concern and trauma in the Republic of Ireland. The report garnered very significant public interest and was a key stepping stone to the decision by the NI Executive that a full public inquiry will be established to examine these institutions further.  his research forms part of Sean's growing expertise in the social history of Northern Ireland.

Dr Sean O'Connell teaches on the following programmes / modules:

Undergraduate

Postgraduate

MHY7089 - Module on Difficult Oral Histories