Did Ireland have an Empire? Renowned historian explores England's oldest colony

The Friends of The Derry Walls are delighted to announce that this Friday February 21, they will be having their February lecture by renowned historian Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer, Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin.

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer is Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin and was a driving force behind the 1641 Depositions Project and the development of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

She chaired the Irish Research Council from 2015-2021 and in 2023 she received an Advanced ERC for VOICES, a project on the lived experiences of women in early modern Ireland.  She is also the author or editor of numerous articles and thirteen books. 

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Her latest Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World is based on the 2021 Ford Lectures in Oxford.  In 2023 she was awarded the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities.

Prof. Ohlymeyer's works explores Ireland as England’s oldest colony, she explores academic questions surrounding how the English empire actually functioned in early modern Ireland as well as looking at how this changed over time. She also speaks on what access to European empires meant for people living in Ireland.

Professor Jane’s talk will feature these topics during a time like the present when events of the early twenty-first century, Brexit, ‘the culture wars’, the campaigns around ‘Black Lives Matters’ and ‘Statues must fall’ along with calls for reparations and the restitution and repatriation of plundered artefacts have kindled a greater awareness of the importance of revisiting the history of empires.  

Professor Jane Ohlymeyer's lecture takes place in the Verbal Arts Centre, Bishop Street Within, on Friday, February 21 2025 from 7-8pm. Tickets can be found on Eventbrite.