Diarmaid Ferriter is Full Professor and Chair of Modern Irish History at UCD and author of fourteen books on Irish history. He is a regular television and radio broadcaster and a weekly columnist with the Irish Times.

Background and Career

Diarmaid Ferriter was born in Dublin and grew up in Dundrum. He graduated from UCD in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and in 1996 with a PhD in Modern Irish History. He lectured in modern Irish history in UCD from 1996-98, before becoming a senior lecturer in history at St Patrick’s College, DCU, from 1999 to 2008. He was Burns Scholar at Boston College from 2008-2009 before returning to UCD as Professor of Modern Irish History.

From 2003 to 2009, Ferriter hosted What If, a Sunday morning radio programme on RTÉ Radio and presented RTÉ's The History Show from 2011 to 2012. He continues to cover a range of Irish historical matters on RTÉ and the BBC.

He was appointed a member of the Expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations by the Taoiseach in 2011, serving in that role until 2023.

He has also served on the Board of the National Library of Ireland, the Irish Archives Advisory Council, the Committee of the Irish Historical Society and the Committee of the Women’s History Association of Ireland.

Diarmaid Ferriter has worked on multiple television projects, presenting a three-part television series, The Limits of Liberty (2010) and was co-writer and presenter of the 2018 documentary Keepers of the Flame. In 2014, he began writing as a weekly column for The Irish Times. He presents the weekly RTÉ history podcast, What Were We Like? , with archivist Catriona Crowe.

Books
Diarmaid Ferriter has written multiple acclaimed history books, including:

• Mothers, Maidens and Myths: A History of the Irish Countrywomen's Association (1995)
• A Nation of Extremes; the pioneers in twentieth-century Ireland (1999)
• Cuimhnigh Ar Luimneach: A history of Limerick County Council, 1898–1998 (1999)
• Lovers of Liberty? Local government in twentieth-century Ireland (2001)
• The Transformation of Ireland: 1900–2000 (2004)
• What If? Alternative Views of Twentieth-Century Ireland (2006)
• Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon de Valera (2007)
• Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland (2009)
• Ambiguous Republic: Ireland in the 1970s (2012)
• A Nation and not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913-23 (2015)
• On the Edge: Ireland's Offshore Islands: A Modern History (2018)
• The Border: The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics (2019)
• Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War (2021)
• The Revelation of Ireland 1995-2020 (2024)

Journalism Awards and Notable Achievements



Fintan O’Toole has received several high-profile and prestigious honours for his writing and insight, including:


• The Robert B Silvers Prize for Journalism (2024)
• The European Press Prize (2017), for his columns on Brexit
• The Orwell Prize (2017)
• NewsBrands Columnist of the Year (Broadsheet) in 2017, 2018, and 2020
• UCD Alumni Award in Arts & Humanities (2018)
• AT Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism (1993)
• Elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, a body of experts in the humanities and social sciences, in 2020
• Honorary international member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences



Awards and Notable Achievements



Ferriter’s 2007 biography of Eamon de Valera, Judging Dev, won in three categories of the 2008 Irish Book Awards. In March 2019, Ferriter was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Ireland’s highest academic honour, for being “the most consistently innovative interpreter of the modern Irish historical experience.”