Dr Síobhra Aiken of Roinn na Gaeilge agus an Léinn Cheiltigh (the Department of Irish and Celtic Studies) in the School of Arts, English and Languages was awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books in Language and Culture for her monograph Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War (Irish Academic Press, 2022).

Dr Aiken’s book challenges the view that the events of the Irish Civil War (1922–23) were shrouded in a blanket of silence by a exposing wealth of previously neglected testimonies. These testimonies are excavated from various genres of life writing and are skilfully analysed to probe new questions on themes such as witnessing, gendered and sexual violence, exile, and perpetrator trauma.

The ACIS judging panel suggest that Spiritual Wounds marks “a key turning point in Irish studies in that it grants the range of what might in the past have been called paraliterary texts, equal, if not greater, significance than the work of previously canonized figures… It also very convincingly places the issue of trauma, and the literary-critical apparatus that has developed in recent years to consider its impacts on culture, at the forefront of Irish studies.”

Spiritual Wounds was also shortlisted recently for the Whitfield Prize 2022 by the Royal Historical Society for first book within a field of British or Irish history.

Dr Sophie Cooper, of Liberal Arts in the School of Arts, English and Languages, was awarded the Lawrence J McCaffrey Prize for Books on Irish America for her study, Forging Identities in the Irish World: Melbourne and Chicago, c. 1830-1922 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).

Forging Identities in the Irish World places women and children alongside men to explore the varied influences on migrant identity and community life within colonial Melbourne and Chicago.

Praising the work, the ACIS judging panel commented that the “Cooper’s transnational approach allows her to show how some elements of Irish identity were consistent across the diaspora, while others were influenced by their local and national contexts. By illuminating the differences between how foundational identity was forged in Chicago and Melbourne, Cooper enhances our understanding of Irish America.”

Dr Robin Adams from the Centre for Economic History at Queen’s Management School receivd the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book for his work Shadow of a Taxman: Who Funded the Irish Revolution? (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Established in 1960, the ACIS is a leading multidisciplinary academic organisation that seeks to promote inclusive, dynamic, and diverse research and writing on Irish history, language, literature, folklore, social studies, and fine and applied arts.