Niall Ó Súilleabháin – Medieval Historian

Welcome to the official launch post of this blog and this website!

(It’s slightly belated, of course, because this website has been live for nearly a month now, and I’m only now getting around to the launch post, so I guess I’m starting as I mean to go on….)

So what exactly is this launch about?

Well, it’s the beginning of a stable web presence and a personal academic website for me. Who’s me? I’m Niall Ó Súilleabháin, a historian of medieval society, who is for the moment based in Poitiers, France. Like most early-career historians, a stable, permanent academic post is a long way away yet for me, and although I’ve been luckier than most in terms of full-time jobs, it does still leave one’s academic profile somewhat scattered across various different institutional websites, email addresses and conference programmes. This website is envisaged as a place to put all that stuff together in one, easy-to-find repository, so that someone who stumbles across my name in a programme can find my publications, research interests and ongoing projects easily and quickly on the first page of a Google search.

The website itself is pretty straight-forward and self-explanatory. There’s a detailed About page, which has everything you’ve ever wanted to know about my education, CV and research interests. There’s a separate page listing my Publications, if this blog-post has whetted your appetite about more of my writing. This publications list will be updated regularly as stuff which is currently in the publication pipeline makes its way into print, and I’ll also update this blog with information pieces that are about to appear. This Blog itself will be semi-regular at best; it will mainly provide updates about publications, conference papers etc., but it will also provide an opportunity to reflect on ongoing research, if I feel so inclined. I sincerely hope I will – a hidden goal of this website is to force encourage me to write more regularly, so if that’s successful there will hopefully be more content of that type. Finally, there’s a Contact page, if you would like to get in touch or even if you want to hire me for any freelance or consulting work.

Finally, the other reason why this website exists, and why I’m lucky enough be living in such a fantastic medieval city as Poitiers, is the Practices of Unfreedom in Northern France project, or PUNF. PUNF is a Marie Sklodowska Curie actions project, focusing on instances of unfreedom, slavery and serfdom in documentary material from Northern France between the late ninth and early twelfth centuries. For the duration of this project, I’m based at the fantastic, interdisciplinary Centre d’études supérieures en civlisation medieval (CESCM) here in Poitiers. The PUNF project has its own dedicated page on this website and – as part of the promises made in my application for this funding – this will gradually be filled with updates, resources and publications from the project over the next 18 months and beyond. This section of the website will be bilingual, both in English and in French, with a French version of the main page coming soon.

So that’s my grand vision for this website for the foreseeable future. Tune in on the blog next week to find out where to hear more about some of my research…