John Cunningham has been a lecturer in History at NUI Galway since 2004. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on labour history, on local history and on modern Ireland.

He is currently joint editor of Saothar: journal of the Irish Labour History Society.

Contact details

Email: john.cunningham@nuigalway.ie

Phone: 353-91-495642

Postal address: Room 313, Tower Block One, NUI Galway

Current research interests:

John's principal research interest is in the moral economy of pre-Famine Ireland, to which end he is investigating conflicts about food in urban areas. Also interested in labour biography, he is collaborating with Dr Emmet O'Connor on a collection of biographical essays.

Authored books

2009: Unlikely radicals: Irish post-primary teachers and the ASTI, 1909-2009, Cork: Cork University Press.

2004: ‘A town tormented by the sea': Galway, 1790-1914, Dublin: Geography Publications, 2004.

1999: St Jarlath's College, Tuam: 1800-2000, Tuam: SJC Publications, 1999

1995: Labour in the west of Ireland: working life and struggle, Belfast: Athol Books, 1995

Recent articles

Cunningham, J. 2011, '"A class quite distinct": herds and their defence of their working conditions,' Carla King & Conor McNamara, The West of Ireland: new perspectives on the nineteenth century, Dublin: The History Press

Cunningham, J. 2011, '"Spreading VD all over Connacht": reproductive rights and wrongs in 1970s Galway,' HIstory Ireland, vo.19, no.2, March-April. Download a PDF HERE

Cunningham, J. 2011, 'Recovering the cargo of the Julia: salvage, law, and the killing of "wreckers" in Conamara, 1873', William Sheehan & Maura Cronin, eds, Riotous Assemblies: Rebels, Riots and Revolts in Ireland: Cork: Mercier Press

Cunningham, J. 2010, Review of Niamh Puirséil, The Irish Labour Party, 1922-1973 in Journal of British Studies Vol 49, No 1,March. Available on-line at http://www.ucdpress.ie/pdfs/Journal of British Studies vol 49, no 1 Mar 2010 49154 .pdf

Cunningham, J, 2010 ‘"Compelled to their bad acts by hunger": three Irish urban crowds, 1817-45,' Éire-Ireland, vol.45, no.1-2.

Cunningham, J, 2010 ‘Labour lives, no.12: James M. Pringle (1883-1949), Saothar: journal of the Irish Labour History Society, vol.35.

Cunningham, J, 2009 ‘She nearly dropped dead at the idea that someone would join voluntarily:' memories of ASTI activists, c.1960-1990, Saothar: journal of the Irish Labour History Society, vol.34.

Cunningham, J, 2008 ‘Popular protest and a ‘moral economy' in provincial Ireland in the early 19^th century', Devine, Lane, & Puirséil, Essays in Irish labour history a festschrift for John and Elizabeth Boyle, Irish Academic Press.