Lionel Pilkington is a graduate of University College Cork and the University of Toronto. He teaches drama and theatre studies, Irish theatre history, colonialism and cultural theory, and cultural politics. His research interests include twentieth-century Irish theatre, the playwright J. M. Synge, and minorities in Irish culture. He is currently writing a monograph entitled Theatricality, Agency and Irish Cultural Politics, 1900-2000. The book focuses on non-institutional theatre and performance practices in 20th century Ireland ranging from fairground games in the early 1900s to jazz dancing in the 1930s, from costume balls to state pageants, and from prison protests to orange marches.

Irish drama, theatre and Irish cultural history, postcolonialism and Irish studies, culture and politics in Northern Ireland.