Professor Mary P. Corcoran
Mary P. Corcoran is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. She is a graduate of the University of Dublin, Trinity College and Columbia University, New York. Her research and teaching interests lie primarily in the field of Irish migratory processes, urban transformations and public/civic cultures. She has participated in a number of national and international research projects exploring aspects of the urban environment. The author of numerous scholarly articles and reports, Corcoran is the co-author with Perry Share and Hilary Tovey of the third edition of A Sociology of Ireland, Gill and MacMillan (2007); the co-editor (with Perry Share) of Belongings: shaping identity in Modern Ireland (2008) and (with Michel Peillon) of Uncertain Ireland, (2006); Place and non-place; The Reconfiguration of Ireland (2004) and Ireland Unbound: a turn of the century chronicle (2002) all published by the Institute of Public Administration. Corcoran’s co-edited book (with Mark O’Brien), Censorship and the Democratic State, was published by Four Courts Press in 2005. Her earlier book, Irish Illegals: Transients Between Two Societies (1993) charted the experiences of undocumented Irish people in New York City during the 1980s.
Ms Karen Keaveney
Karen Keaveney is a Lecturer in Spatial Planning in the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering in Queen’s University Belfast. She is a graduate of the Department of Geography, NUI ,Galway where she studied for a BA in Human and Physical Geography. She then completed a Masters in Regional and Urban Planning in UCD and a PhD in Geography from NUI Maynooth. Karen represents the Geographical Society of Ireland on the RIA National Social Sciences Committee. Her research interests include housing, the spatial literacy needs of planners, inter-jurisdictional planning, and rural restructuring. She also has an interest in 'alternative perspectives' on planning, using media such as film and literature to understand individual and community perceptions of space and place.
Dr Kevin Lalor
Dr. Kevin Lalor is Head of School of Social Sciences and Law (Acting) and Director of the Centre for Social and Educational Research, at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Research interests include child abuse, adolescence and youth. He is the author (with colleagues) of Young people in contemporary Ireland (2007, Gill and Macmillan), and co-editor of Applied Social Care (2009, Gill and Macmillan)
http://www.dit.ie/socialscienceslaw/socialsciences/staff/kevinlalor/
Dr SiniSa MaleSevic
Dr. Siniša Malešević, MRIA, is Director of the Centre for the Study of Nationalism and Organised Violence and Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the NUI, Galway. Previously he was a research fellow in the Institute for International Relations (Zagreb) and the Centre for the Study of Nationalism (Prague). He also held visiting research fellowships in the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna) and the London School of Economics. His research interests include comparative-historical and theoretical study of ethnicity and nationalism, ideology, war, violence as well as sociological theory. He is author of 5 and editor of 4 books and over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His recent books include The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Identity as Ideology (Palgrave, 2006), The Sociology of Ethnicity (Sage, 2004), Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State (Routledge 2002; reprinted in 2008) and co-edited volumes Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Making Sense of Collectivity (Pluto Press, 2002).
Dr Orlaigh Quinn
Orlaigh Quinn is a senior civil servant in the Department of Social and Family Affairs with policy responsibility for occupational, private and State pensions; supports for older people; and carers. She is also responsible for evaluation and expenditure reviews in the Department. She is a member of the Pensions Board, the EU Social Protection Committee and the Oversight Board of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Dr Quinn was formerly responsible for the Office for Social Inclusion where she led the development of Ireland’s National Action Plan for Social Inclusion. She has also worked for the European Commission in Brussels and a number of other government departments, including the Central Statistics Office and the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. She is a former Visiting Research Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and holds a Masters in Public Management and a Doctorate in Governance from Queen’s University Belfast.
Dr Theresa Reidy
Dr Theresa Reidy is a lecturer in the Department of Government at University College Cork, where she teaches Irish politics and political economy. Her research interests are in the field of public finance, political parties and political science education. She has received funding from the Department of Education, Irish Aid and NAIRTL. She has been Secretary of the Political Studies Association of Ireland since 2006.