معرفی
Professor Olwen Purdue serves as Professor of Social History and Director of the Centre for Public History within the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy & Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. She holds significant external roles including Council membership at the Royal Historical Society and Board Directorship at the Irish Museums Association. Her work bridges academic research with practical heritage applications across Northern Ireland and internationally.
Professor Purdue specializes in nineteenth and twentieth-century Irish social history with emphasis on power dynamics, social class, and urban contexts. Her research spans child welfare under the Irish Poor Law, landed estates in Northern Ireland, and public history in divided societies. She examines how welfare systems responded to industrial Belfast's challenges and investigates middle-class administrators' interactions with impoverished families. Current projects include studying unaccompanied Irish child emigration to settler colonies and evaluating post-conflict heritage practices.
Her recent publications demonstrate consistent focus on poverty narratives, historical agency, and contested heritage. The 2023 monograph Poverty, Children and the Poor Law in Industrial Belfast 1880-1914 complements her 2009 work The Big House in the North of Ireland, while the 2024 edited volume Public History in Ireland: Difficult Pasts establishes frameworks for navigating post-conflict memory. Her scholarship increasingly addresses transnational themes through projects like Our Voices: Public History in Jordan.
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2017)
- Elected to Royal Historical Society Council (2023)
- President of Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland
- Director of Irish Museum Association (2018-2022)
- Historical advisor to Titanic Belfast and Ulster Museum
- Recipient of AHRC Creative Economy Engagement Fellowship (2018)
- ESRC NINE PhD Research Funding (£80,000) recipient (2021)
Professor Purdue actively supervises PhD students in British/Irish urban history (1850-1930), public history in divided societies, and child welfare studies. She leads major research initiatives including Conflict and Creativity (evaluating Ulster Museum's Troubles collection) and Heritage Connects (community storytelling projects). Her advisory roles span National Museums NI, Channel 4's historical documentaries, and international museum development.
As founder of Queen's Centre for Public History and MA in Public History program, she directs institutional engagement with heritage sectors. Her work connects academic research with cultural institutions through projects like Network for Education in Divided Societies and collaborations with Luxembourg University. Media contributions include BBC Radio 4's Assume Nothing and press commentary on Belfast's historical narratives.
