Shannon Devlin, FHEA, FRHistS

I am a social and gender historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland. My research interests lie in the Irish family, particularly the often-overlooked sibling relationship. Taking a horizontal approach, my research uses innovative genealogical methodology to explore the gendered expectations placed on brothers and sisters in middle-class Irish society. My first monograph, entitled Siblinghood and Sociability in Nineteenth-Century Ulster, was published with Liverpool University Press in January 2025. It explores how family shapes personal identity and social networking. More broadly, I'm interested in Irish sexuality, failed courtship, friendship, social networking, and the role of family in the Irish diaspora.

I am currently researching attitudes to consenual incest and cousin marriage in Ireland.

In 2022, I was the Balch Fellow at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania completing a project exploring the role of migrant siblings in creating trans-Atlantic networks of correspondence and support. This research explores the Irish family within a global context across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

I completed my PhD at Queens University Belfast in 2020. From 2022-24, I was lecturer in Irish gender history at Ulster University. I convene the Lifecycles, Families, and Communities strand of the Social History Society and I am an Executive Member of the Womens History Association of Ireland. I am currently the Treasurer for the International Federation for Research in Women's History. 

In 2025, I was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.  

The Irish family c.1750-1990,siblings and siblinghood, cousins, horizontal and diagonal family relationships, the role of the extended family, family correspondence and social networks, the role of the family in migration and Irish diaspora.The Irish middle classes, rural society and leisure culture, nineteenth-century Ireland, especially Ulster.The history of Irish sexuality, youth and pre-marriage stages of the life cycle, singlehood and non-marriage in Irish culture.The use of genealogical methodology, family archival collections, carte de visite collecting, family history and speculative non-fiction in historical writing.

My teaching interests lie in modern Irish social and cultural history, rural and urban Ireland, Irish migration, the history of the family, gender and family politics in nineteenth-century Ireland and Britain. I currently convene and teach on:

HI2160 - Ireland Since Independence

HI166 - Ireland in the 1950s

HI3204 - The Family in Irish Society

HI3205 -Gender, Sexuality, and Society in Ireland, 1780-1922