QUB History Seminar: Kevin O'Sullivan

The History Seminar Series is delighted to host Kevin O'Sullivan (University of Galway) on 21st November in Room 01.003, 27 University Square at 4:00pm.

What was the day-to-day experience of foreign direct investment (FDI) in late twentieth-century Ireland? And where do we look for it? This paper uses a case study of a farming community in Co. Tipperary in the 1980s, and its battle with pollution from a local pharmaceutical plant, to examine how narratives of invisibility and uncertainty characterised Irish encounters with multinational capital - and how we document them. The first half of the paper focuses on the new industrial geography of Ireland that the embrace of an FDI-led economic model generated, its environmental impact, and the regulatory structures that enabled it. In the second half of the paper, I explore the limitations of traditional archives in mapping these histories, and show how looking to bodies (human and non-human animals) and landscapes helps us to uncover them. The paper ends by reflecting on how histories of pollution unsettle our understanding of temporality and what this means for writing histories of modern Ireland.

Dr Kevin O'Sullivan is an Associate Professor in History and Vice-Dean for Research & Innovation in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies at University of Galway. His primary interests are in global history, especially the areas of environmental history, global justice, and NGOs. He is currently working on a project titled, 'Green Fractures: Climate, Capitalism and Community in Ireland since the 1970s', which examines Ireland's socio-economic transformation over the past half-century through the lens of environmental history. As part of that research, he is co-lead of the AHRC-funded 'Sites of Fracture' project (2025-2027) and is a collaborator on This/OUR, a community-focused deep-mapping initiative based at Greywood Arts Centre in East Cork. His previous work focused on relations between the West and the Global South, including the books The NGO Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire (Manchester University Press, 2012). He is also an editor of the Royal Irish Academy's Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series.

Refreshments, drinks, and snacks will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there!

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Any queries or questions, please email jorchin03@qub.ac.uk.