in Irish history and politics at Griffith College and formerly at Tisch NYU. A presenter of Newstalk’s ‘Talking History’, he’s also a regular contributor to the station’s Moncrieff show. At the 2010 Electric Picnic he kicked off his latest project, History Ireland Hedge Schools, an ongoing series of round table discussions of historical and contemporary interest.

NUI Galway. He was a contributor to the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2009) and is a regular contributor to History Ireland magazine. He has written three books – Ireland and the Popish Plot (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), The shadow of a year: the 1641 rebellion in Irish history and memory (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), and 16 Lives: Seán Heuston (O’Brien Press, 2013) – and in 2012 he hit the streets again to produce and present an acclaimed radio documentary on the criminal folklore of inner-city Dublin: The Animal Gangs (you can listen to it right here)

published on the Hospital of St John the Baptist, a medieval religious hospital in Dublin and has taught extensively at undergraduate level. Grace’s particular passion concerns the medieval history of Dublin – although only fragments of the medieval city survive, they reveal much about life for the inhabitants of the city – the walls which protected them, the markets where they bought their food, the churches whose bells tolled for life and death, and the Castle, which from the twelfth century to the twentieth reminded the citizens of their obligations to the English Crown.

published by New Island Books). His recently completed MA thesis on 1930s Dublin and youth criminality will be published shortly. He is a regular contributor to Irish media (print and radio) on Dublin’s history, society and popular culture.