At a ceremony on November 1 in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, the Chancellor of the University Dr Maurice Manning announced the winners of two major NUI awards for research in Irish History.
Dr Bernadette Cunningham was awarded the Irish Historical Research Prize for The Annals of the Four Masters, Irish History, Kingship and Society in the early Seventeenth Century published in 2010 by Four Courts Press. This prestigious prize of €5,000 is offered in alternate years for the best work of original Irish historical research by a graduate of the National University of Ireland. The Selection Panel for the prize was drawn from the community of historians in the NUI universities.
Commenting on Dr Cunningham’s book, the Selection Panel noted that ‘The acclaimed author of the world of Geoffrey Keating has explored the makings of the Annals of the Four Masters in all its rich dimensions. Everywhere, she highlights the larger significance of events and, in its understanding of the sheer central important of the subject, this masterly book is unique’. Dr Cunningham is Deputy Librarian in the Royal Irish Academy.
The Publication Prize in Irish History was awarded to Dr Caitriona Foley for The Last Irish Plague The Great Flu Epidemic in Ireland 1918-1919 published in 2011 by Irish Academic Press. This prize of €3,000 was awarded for a first sole author book by an NUI scholar whose doctoral degree was awarded no earlier than 1 January 2005.
Commenting on this book, the panel remarked that ‘This is an excellent, multi faceted study of a relatively neglected episode. There is no aspect, however unexpected of the great flu that Dr Foley has not exhaustively researched in this fascinating and graphic historical reconstruction’.
Recent Photos
