Sinead Sturgeon

My research focuses on nineteenth-century Irish writing and culture, with particular interests in the gothic and Irish romanticism, the short story, and the work of poet and translator James Clarence Mangan.

Before joining Queen’s, I was a researcher and writer for the Royal Irish Academy project, the Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge University Press, 2009), contributing numerous articles on significant figures from Irish history across a range of fields. Since then my research has focused mainly on nineteenth-century Irish writing and culture, especially on the work of the poet and translator James Clarence Mangan. I have also published on subjects such as the significance of poitín in traditional recreational culture and its intersection with the law; the symbology of birds and birdsong in romanticism; Irish gothic; the history of Irish music and song and its literary representation. My work has appeared in a number of journals, including: The Irish Studies Review, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, The Irish Journal of Irish Gothic and Horror Studies, Éire-Ireland, and Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica. I am a regular reviewer of Irish criticism and contemporary fiction for the Times Literary Supplement.

Undergraduate Teaching: 

ENG1009 Contemporary Irish Writing 

ENG2081 Irish Literature

ENG3330 Irish Gothic (Convenor)

Postgraduate Teaching

ENG7373 Irish Women's Writing (Convenor)

PhD Supervision

Areas of interest: nineteenth-century Irish writing and culture; the short story; the Gothic.