Catherine Morris

I am an Assistant Professor of Literature and Drama at the Department of English at Maynooth. I practice an interdisciplinary approach to theatre, literature, visual culture and creative writing. I have devised and delivered BA, MA and MFA programmes in literature and creative writing and served on Doctoral Student Research Panels as both an advisor and examiner. I welcomes dissertation and doctoral candidates in drama, life writing, creative nonfiction, Irish Revival studies and visual culture.

I have three decades of experience working in Higher Education at the intersection of teaching theory and practice at Universities in the UK and Europe including the University of Galway, University College Dublin and most recently Liverpool Hope University where I served as Associate Professor of Creative Writing & Literature. In 2016, my graphic novel was launched on Key-Stage 3 across the whole of Northern Ireland. Following the publication of my first monograph Alice Milligan and the Irish Cultural Revival I gifted my entire research archive about the Irish Cultural Revival (generated during the last decade of The Troubles) to Omagh Public Library where it is available as a free-to-access educational resource. I am a member of Irish PEN/PEN na hEireann and Visual Artists Ireland. My work in literature has been honoured by the President of Ireland at two public ceremonies: in 2012 at Aras an Uachtarain and again in 2019 with a state visit to Central Library Liverpool to explore the Liverpool-Irish archives I draw on in my experimental memoir Intimate Power: Autobiography of a City.

My approach to research, teaching and cultural practice is informed by a broad training: my undergraduate and postgraduate studies were completed at the University of Cambridge, the University of Aberdeen and at Trinity College Dublin. I have been the recipient of Research Fellowships at St John’s College Oxford, Queen’s College, Belfast and from the John Hulme Global Irish Institute, University College Dublin. Committed to life-long learning in the arts and humanities, I served as Progress and Welfare Coordinator for the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Sussex, was the first Cultural Coordinator for Trinity College Dublin and Ireland’s National Institutions and was honoured to be appointed to serve as the first Director of the Museum of Cambridge. I have completed new works of creative nonfiction while Writer-in-Residence at Dublin’s Writer’s Centre and at Central Library, Liverpool. Exhibitions I have guest curated include: El Lissitzky: the Artist and the State (Irish Museum of Modern Art) and the Irish Cultural Revival (opened at the National Library of Ireland in 2012 by Fiona Shaw).

Publications & Exhibitions

 Books

·       Intimate Power: Autobiography of a City Book (Spring Publications, 2025).

·       The Art of Aftermath with American Artist Tim Maul, (Spring Publications, 2023).

·       Alice Milligan and the Irish Cultural Revival, (Four Courts Press, 2012 hbk; ppk with new preface by Declan Kiberd, 2013).

 International Journals

·       Co-Editor Performing in Digital, Special Issue Research in Drama Education (Publication Summer 2022).

·       Co-Editor Lonergan European Capitals of Culture: The Art of Imagining (Summer 2021).

·       Co-editor Post-Colonial Connolly: Special Issue of Interventions, an International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (Spring/Summer 2008). This issue includes the lost 1916 Connolly play.

 Performance Scripts / Creative nonfiction

·       Final Interlude: On Love & Looking in Into the Wyld Exhibition Catalogue, (Material Matters Press, forthcoming 2025)

·       In Mexico City a Woman said They took so much of us they also took our fear, in The New Pretender December 2020.

·       Towards May 12th play published in The New Pretender May 2020.

·       Graphic Novel Alice Milligan/Francis Ledwidge, Graphic Novel about Alice Milligan, designed and published by Nerve Centre, April 2016; launched onto the National Curriculum Key Stage 3 in secondary schools across Northern Ireland.

Articles

• Erin Fettered; Erin Free Revival Feminism: History, Politics, Art Cambridge Themes in Irish Culture Series edited by Gregory Castle and Ronan McDonald (forthcoming 2025)
• Human Rights and Europe: Heaney's Burial at Thebes (Eire-Ireland, forthcoming 2025)
• My so strange roots: Performing Archive; Embodying Memory Etudes Irlandaises Special Issue Ireland and Intangible Cultural Heritage (47-1 2022), pp. 33-47.
• The Last Feast of the Fianna, Fifty Key Irish Plays. Ed. Shaun Richards, (Routledge, 2022).
• Visual Culture and performance in Representing Revolution in Irish Culture: Special Issue of Review of Irish Studies in Europe (edited by Rod Stoneman & Sean Crosson), 2018.
• Alice Milligan: Republican Tableaux and the Revival Field Day Review (December 2010).
• Putting Belfast into the Cultural Revival Picture, Irish Times 27 January 2007.
• In the enemy's camp Cities of Belfast ed. A. Kelly, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003).
• Becoming Irish? The Paradoxes of Identity Irish University Review (2003).

Exhibition Catalogues

• Exhibition Booklet: El Lissitzky: Artist and State (IMMA, 2015)
• Exhibition Catalogue Human Rights in Performance (National Library of Ireland, 2012)
• Document! Visual arts archives, (National Irish Visual Arts Library, 2012)
• Alice Maher Retrospective 'Breathing it all in: gendered bodies in the Art of Alice Maher', (IMMA 2012)

Reports into Universities, Culture & Arts

• Universities in New York, Dublin and Liverpool: Connecting Culture with Art (Dublin: Trinity Long Room Hub, 2012)
• Practice Orientated Degrees & Creative City Partnerships: London, York and Dublin (Trinity Long Room Hub, 2012)
• Libraries Facing the Digital Challenge (Dublin: Trinity Long Room Hub, 2012).

Edited Volumes

• Research editor with R. Loeber, Bibliography of Irish Fiction, 1650-1900 (Four Courts Press, 2006).
• Research editor with John Kelly The Letters of W. B. Yeats, 1907-12 (Oxford University Press).

Selected Exhibitions & Public Cultural Events Exhibitions

• Co-Curator, Thread Roads (Hope University Library, 2023).
• Curator Intimate Power: Autobiography of a City Central Library Liverpool, 2018
• Creative Advisor The Two Deaths of Roger Casement, play with Cia Ludens, 2018
• Creative Director: Arts in Action with Stella McCusker, Galway, 2017
• Writer/Director: X-Ray Plath Culture Night, Ireland 2017
• Guest Curator El Lissitzky: The Artist and State Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2015
• Contributor British Folk Art (Tate Britain, 2014).
• Curator Women Painters, 1880-1921 Museum of Cambridge, 2013.
• Curator The Irish Cultural Revival, National Library of Ireland, 2012. Opened by Fiona Shaw.
• Curatorial Advisor The Ties That Bind: Ireland & America New York Public Library, 2011.
• With Gabriel Byrne Culture and Community public discussion Millbank Theatre 2011.
• Curator with Imagine Ireland of The Summer Salon, New York Public Library 2011
• Chair, Cities Forum, Policy Institute, Trinity College 2011
• Curator Round Table Creativity & the City, New York Public Library 2011
• Curator International Women's Day National Library of Ireland, 2011
• Curator Ninette De Valois & the Ballets Russes Oonagh Young Gallery 2010