Ian started following the work of Jennifer Wallis, Queen Mary, University of London, Centre for the History of the Emotions.
Ian started following the work of Georgina Laragy, NUI Maynooth, History.
Ian started following the work of Stevenson Alanna, Alfred College, Health Science.
Post-Doc, History and Archives
IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow
Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin
About
I am currently an IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin. My current research forms the basis of a forthcoming monograph to be published by Manchester University Press. This asks how and why dietary change occurred in post-Famine Ireland, with particular emphasis on the complex interactions between state policy, scientific knowledge and the public. The project assesses this within the broad time-frame 1845-1939, and explores themes including the application of agricultural chemistry to food production; the efficacy of adulteration laws in Ireland; institutional diets; the emergence of consumerist “tea-drinking” cultures in the late nineteenth century; domestic education; and the impact of the First World War on patterns of food consumption and production.
My monograph, A Modern History of the Stomach: Gastric Illness, Medicine and British Society was published by Pickering and Chatto in 2011. Within this, I explore the complex interactions between the medical disciplines of dietetics, pathological anatomy, laboratory medicine, surgery and psychosomatic medicine. I argue that the stomach is an organ imbued with historical significance in the modern period, acting as a corporeal site where tensions between types of medicine are played out. The monograph also explores the Victorian fascination with digestion and indigestion; the use of stomach tubes in suffragette hunger strike controversies; and rising levels of gastric ulcer disease during World War Two.
A series of articles have been published, or are in preparation, which deal with topics including the uses of science within official Famine relief policy; the perceived degenerative effects of tea-drinking in Victorian culture; the Dublin School of Medicine; Victorian working-class suicide; and vegetarian history. My teaching interests include history of science, social history, and medical history in Britain and Ireland, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
I obtained an undergraduate degree at University of Manchester in 2005. gaining a first class degree (with honours) in History and Sociology. After successfully completing a Masters degree in Victorian Studies, under the supervision of Dr Julie-Marie Strange, I obtained my PhD at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Manchester in 2009 under the supervision of Dr Ian A Burney and Professor Michael Worboys. Upon completion of my PhD, I secured a position as Senior Teaching Fellow in the Centre for the History of Medicine, University College Dublin (2008-9). Between 2008-9, I secured funding from the European Science Foundation (ESF)'s Drugs History project which involved exchange trips to history departments in Oslo and Paris.
