Oisín Wall

Dr. Oisín Wall is a Lecturer in Radical Humanities at the University College Cork (UCC), affiliated with the School of History and the Radical Humanities Laboratory. He holds a Wellcome Trust fellowship for his research on the opioid epidemic in 20th-century Ireland. His work bridges marginalized communities, health, and social history. Wall earned his BA at UCC, MRes at Birkbeck College, and PhD at King’s College London. He has authored two monographs, including Prisoners’ Bodies: Activism, Health, and the Prisoners’ Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972–1985 (2024) and The British Anti-Psychiatrists (2017). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and editor of the Society for the Social History of Medicine’s Gazette.

Wall’s research focuses on prison activism, drug-use history, and psychiatry. He has curated major exhibitions at the Science Museum (London) and Kilmainham Gaol Museum. His grants include €221,665 from the Wellcome Trust (2021–2023) and €350,000 for the Medicine Galleries Research Strategy (2016–2020). He supervises doctoral students in marginalized communities and histories of medicine.

His teaching interests include contemporary Irish history and museum studies. Wall’s work emphasizes public engagement, as seen in his collaborative exhibitions and academic outreach initiatives.