Niamh Reilly is Established Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Galway. Her research interests focus on the relationship between theory and practice and the role of ideas in emancipatory projects. She is currently researching the history of ideas in Ireland in the decades before 1916. She has published widely on issues of human rights and gender; feminist political and social theory; religion in the public sphere; transnational advocacy and the United Nations; gender and migration; and women, peace and security. Her book, Womens Human Rights: Seeking Gender Justice in a Globalizing Age (Polity Press, 2009) was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2010 by the American Library Association CHOICE. She is co-author of Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Womens Human Rights (UNIFEM 1994). Her edited collections include Religion, Gender and the Public Sphere (Routledge 2014) (Lead editor) and The Human Rights of Women (Springer, Major Reference Works, 2019). Most recently, Niamh Reilly was Irish PI in a multi-country study on gender based violence in contexts of migration, funded by EU Gender Net Plus and the IRC (2019-2023).

Niamh Reilly's research interests encompass: political and social theory;  ideas in emancipatory practice; historical perspectives on political and social thought in Ireland; gender and human rights; the UN in transnational advocacy; religion in the public sphere.

Undergraduate: Social Issues and Policy Responses; Human Rights Advocacy: Concepts, Law and Practice; and Classical Social Thought Postgraduate: Gender, Women and Human Rights