Dr Patrick Bresnihan

Biography
I am a lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. I joined the Department in 2019. Before joining Maynooth, I was lecturer in the Department of Geography in Trinity College Dublin (2015-2019). I have a PhD in Sociology from Trinity College Dublin (2012) and an MPhil in History from Cambridge University (2007).
I work across the interdisciplinary fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. My research has looked at different but related concerns around water, land, and energy in Ireland and how these speak to broader questions of colonial and postcolonial development, environmental politics and the ‘green’ transition. My book, Transforming the Fisheries: Neoliberalism, Nature and the Commons (University of Nebraska Press, 2016) won the Geography Society of Ireland Book of the Year in 2018.
I work across the interdisciplinary fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. My research has looked at different but related concerns around water, land, and energy in Ireland and how these speak to broader questions of colonial and postcolonial development, environmental politics and the ‘green’ transition. My book, Transforming the Fisheries: Neoliberalism, Nature and the Commons (University of Nebraska Press, 2016) won the Geography Society of Ireland Book of the Year in 2018.
Research Interests
My current research looks at the intersection of data, energy, and climate governance, particularly how this plays out in rural geographies. For example, tech companies purchasing electricity from wind farms in Donegal to power their Irish-based data centres; or post-industrial peatlands being converted into sites for alternative energy infrastructures and carbon storage.
This work connects a number of longstanding interests, including how Ireland's colonial and postcolonial history continues to shape present-day development; the enrolling of rural landscapes within state-led developmental projects and global supply chains; the political ecologies of the 'green' transition and environmental governance; and environmental justice movements centring claims around land, health and labour.
My book, All We Want is the Earth. Land, Labour and Movements beyond Environmentalism, written with long-time collaborator Naomi Millner (Bristol University), will be published in 2023 with Bristol University Press.
My research is often collaborative, including working with local community groups, activists, and artists. I am interested in experimenting with creative methods and practices. This interest has been shaped by my involvement in the Provisional University (provisionaluniversity.wordpress.ie) and the Authority Research Network (www.authorityresearch.net).
I am currently supervising:
- Jamie Rohu on Just transitions on the Irish peatlands (IRC-funded).
- Laure Detymowski on urban environmental justice (IRC-funded).
- Robert Keogh on offshore energy & the politics of degrowth (John Hume Scholarship)
This work connects a number of longstanding interests, including how Ireland's colonial and postcolonial history continues to shape present-day development; the enrolling of rural landscapes within state-led developmental projects and global supply chains; the political ecologies of the 'green' transition and environmental governance; and environmental justice movements centring claims around land, health and labour.
My book, All We Want is the Earth. Land, Labour and Movements beyond Environmentalism, written with long-time collaborator Naomi Millner (Bristol University), will be published in 2023 with Bristol University Press.
My research is often collaborative, including working with local community groups, activists, and artists. I am interested in experimenting with creative methods and practices. This interest has been shaped by my involvement in the Provisional University (provisionaluniversity.wordpress.ie) and the Authority Research Network (www.authorityresearch.net).
I am currently supervising:
- Jamie Rohu on Just transitions on the Irish peatlands (IRC-funded).
- Laure Detymowski on urban environmental justice (IRC-funded).
- Robert Keogh on offshore energy & the politics of degrowth (John Hume Scholarship)
Book
Book Chapter
Year | Publication | |
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2023 | Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie (2023) 'Waste, improvement and repair on Ireland's Peat Bogs' In: Ecological Reparation. Repair, Remediation and Resurgence in Social and Environmental Conflict. Bristol, UK : Bristol University Press. | |
2021 | Bresnihan P. (2021) 'Infrastructural care and water politics in Cochabamba, Bolivia' In: Split Waters: The Idea of Water Conflicts. | |
2022 | Patrick Bresnihan (2022) 'Tilting at Windmills' In: Reactivating Elements. Substance, Process and Method from Chemistry to Cosmology. Atlanta, US : Duke University Press. | |
2022 | Patrick Bresnihan and Naomi Millner (2022) 'Decolonising environmental politics' In: Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics. UK : Edward Elgar. | |
2021 | Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie (2021) 'Emerging Geographies of Data and Energy Politics in Ireland' In: Entanglement. New York, United States : ACTAR. | |
2020 | Patrick Bresnihan and Monica de Bath (2020) 'Cneasú creathí: Healing the Wound' In: Earth Writings: Bogs, Forests, Fields & Gardens. Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland : Maynooth University Department of Geography. | |
2020 | Patrick Bresnihan and Arielle Hesse (2020) 'State and community enterprise: Negotiating water management in rural Ireland' In: The Handbook of Diverse Economies. UK : Elgar. | |
2020 | Sinead Mercier, Patrick Bresnihan, Damien Mcllroy, John Barry (2020) 'Climate Action via Just Transitions Across the Island of Ireland: Labour, Land and the Low-Carbon Transition' In: Ireland and the Climate Crisis. Cham : Palgrave MacMillan. [Link] https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47587-1_14 | |
2020 | Patrick Bresnihan (2020) 'Beyond Limits to Growth: Neoliberal Natures and the Green Economy' In: The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology. UK : Cambridge University Press. [Link] | |
2015 | Patrick Bresnihan (2015) 'The more-than-human commons: From commons to commoning' In: Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures. UK : Routledge. | |
2013 | Patrck Bresnihan (2013) 'Participation in (a time of) crisis' In: Problems of Participation. Reflections on Authority, Democracy and the Struggle for Common Life. Brighton, UK : ARN Press. |
Peer Reviewed Journal
Year | Publication | |
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2023 | Arielle Hesse, Patrick Bresnihan and James Merricks-White (2023) 'The data treadmill: water governance and the politics of pollution in rural Ireland'. Local Environment, . [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2023 | Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie (2023) 'Data Sinks, Carbon Services: Waste, Storage, and Energy Cultures on Ireland’s Peat Bogs'. New Media and Society, . | |
2022 | Christopher Phillips, Conor Murphy and Patrick Bresnihan (2022) 'The impacts of and responses to place loss in a coastal community in Ireland'. Local Environment, 27 (7):879-896. [DOI] | |
2021 | Julian Brigstocke, Patrick Bresnihan, Leila Dawney, Naomi Millner (2021) 'Geographies of Authority'. Progress in Human Geography, . https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520986227 | |
2021 | Bresnihan, P; Brodie, P (2021) 'New extractive frontiers in Ireland and the moebius strip of wind/data'. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 4 :1645-1664. [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2020 | Patrick Bresnihan and Arielle Hesse (2020) 'Political ecologies of infrastructural and intestinal decay'. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, . [Full-Text] | |
2018 | Patrick Bresnihan (2018) 'O comum mais-que-humano: do comum à comunalização'. Aurora. Revista de Arte, Mídia e Política, . [Full-Text] | |
2016 | Bresnihan P. (2016) 'The bio-financialization of Irish Water: New advances in the neoliberalization of vital services'. Utilities Policy, 40 :115-124. [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2018 | Patrick Bresnihan (2018) 'Water, our relative: trauma, healing and hydropolitics'. Community Development Journal, . [Full-Text] | |
2017 | Patrick Bresnihan (2017) 'Revisiting neoliberalism in the oceans: Governmentality and the biopolitics of ‘improvement’in the Irish and European fisheries'. Environment and Planning A, . [Full-Text] | |
2017 | Patrick Bresnihan (2017) 'The (slow) tragedy of improvement: Neoliberalism, fisheries management & the institutional commons'. World Development, . [Full-Text] | |
2015 | Patrick Bresnihan and Michael Byrne (2015) 'Escape into the city: Everyday practices of commoning and the production of urban space in Dublin'. Antipode, . [Full-Text] | |
2013 | Patrick Bresnihan (2013) 'John Clare and the manifold commons'. Environmental Humanities, . [Full-Text] | |
2013 | Patrick Bresnihan (2013) 'From land to sea: unsettling subjectivities'. Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, . [Full-Text] |
Conference Contribution
Published Report
Year | Publication | |
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2021 | Patrick Bresnihan, Arielle Hesse and James Merricks-White (2021) Learning from Group Water Schemes: Community Infrastructures for Sustainable Development. Environmental Protection Agency, . [Link] | |
2019 | Patrick Bresnihan and Arielle Hesse (2019) Public engagement in water governance. Report to The Water Forum. An Forum Uisce, . [Link] | |
2016 | Patrick Bresnihan (2016) Valuing Nature – Perspectives and Issues. National Economic and Social Council, . | |
2015 | Patrick Bresnihan (2015) The Dynamics of Environmental Sustainability and Local Development: Aquaculture. National Economic and Social Council, . |
Blog
Year | Publication | |
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2020 | Patrick Bresnihan (2020) Rural and urban, green and red, against eco-austerity. BLOG [Link] |
Certain data included herein are derived from the © Web of Science (2023) of Clarivate. All rights reserved.