Dr Patrick McAlary
Departmental and College Responsibilities
Alongside supporting on the MPhil Text Seminar I have taught across the following papers:
- Part I Paper 1: England before the Norman Conquest
- Part I Paper 3: The Brittonic-Speaking Peoples from the Fourth Century to the Twelfth
- Part I Paper 4: The Gaelic-Speaking Peoples from the Fourth Century to the Twelfth
- Part I Paper 8: Medieval Irish Language and Literature
- Part II Paper 3: Sea Kings and the Celtic Speaking World, c. 1014–1164
- Part II Paper 3: Socio-Economic and Ecclesiastical Relations between Britain and Ireland in the Pre-Viking Era – Interaction and Exchange
I have also been a Director of Studies for Queens' College, Cambridge.
Academic Interests
I completed my PhD in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic entitled 'An Ecclesiastical Institution in Medieval Munster: A Study of Emly to c. 1100'.
I have a wide array of interests relating to early medieval history. I am particularly interested in Irish ecclesiastical history with a specific focus on institutional histories and how these intersect with political and dynastic history.
I am also interested in inter-institutional relationships and how far literary works, such as hagiographies, functioned as 'institutional discourse'. Further research interests include: ecclesiastical contention; ecclesiastic-dynastic relationships; identity construction; political history; pseudo-history; hagiography; the Insular Easter Controversy; chronicles; institutional perspectives on history; dynastic prosopography; medieval Munster.
Apart from medieval history, I am also interested in policy research and application. I took part in the Policy Challenges hosted by the Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange and Cambridgeshire County Council and helped to produce a report about care experienced young people in Cambridgeshire complete with a series of policy recommendations for the Council. I also undertook a Fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology where I produced a research brief for MPs and Peers on Upskilling and Retraining the Adult Workforce. At Cambridge, I also worked as a Policy Research Coordinator at the Centre for Science and Policy.
I am currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for Historical Research and a Research Assistant at the Institute for Government.
Selected Publications
Selected Academic Publications
'Contested Succession at Iona (704–26)', in Ì Chaluim Chille: Interdisciplinary Studies on Iona and Columba on the 1500th anniversary of the Birth the Saint (forthcoming).
'Contention after Mag Léne: Identifying the paries dealbatus in Cummian's Paschal Letter', Peritia 33 (2022), 111–37.
Editing
ed., Quaestio Insularis: Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic 21 (2021); Assistant ed., Quaestio Insularis 20 (2020).
Book Reviews
'Review: John Higgins, Hiberno-Latin Saints' Lives in the Seventh Century: Writing Early Ireland (De Gruyter 2024)', Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture (forthcoming).
Selected Policy Publications
POSTnote 659: Upskilling and Retraining the Adult Workforce (2021).
