About

Hello all!

After years of resisting, I have fallen prey to modern technology — specifically in terms of my writing and research.  This blog is where I will be posting thoughts and ideas I’ve had about my work in the history of masculinities, the Irish Diaspora, and the Atlantic world.  I’m aiming to have a new posting every Monday/Tuesday, either exploring a certain aspect of my current research, pinning up a recent conference paper, or brainstorming about something that’s making me all discombobulated.  However, sometimes life gets in the way and I only post every few weeks.

I also post a fair number of book reviews (both fiction and non-), though those have tapered off in recent years.

Truth is, although I always thought I’d end up in academia, I never thought I’d be working on either the Irish Diaspora or in gender studies.  Research into the history of Irish masculinities (I can explain why it’s plural later) is a fairly new field.  There are more people in it than when I started my PhD over a decade ago, but you could still fit almost all of us into a standard-sized classroom.  That changes to a small kitchen once you angle it towards masculinities and the Irish Diaspora.

My first book, Ulster’s Men, looks at the history of unionists in the north of Ireland before, during, and after the Great War; lately, I’ve broadened my horizons to include masculinities and militarization in the wider Atlantic World, particularly the Irish Diaspora in Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland.  Research and writing can be a lonely exercise at times — I plan on using this blog (and my Twitter account) as a means of bouncing ideas, ruminating and posting my thoughts on topics both past and present.

Also, I cheer for both Notre Dame and the Toronto Maple Leafs, so I’ll occasionally post something tragic because I’m in pain.

Thanks for visiting and do get in touch with comments or emails: jgvmcgaughey [at] gmail [dot] com.  That said, I will not accept comments on this blog that are: abusive, racist, sexist, homophobic, or in any way discriminatory; libellous or which make wild, unsubstantiated claims; irrelevant or unrelated to the blog postings.

Midatlantic Musings by Jane G. V. McGaughey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.