Professor Jane Ohlmeyer is one of Ireland’s foremost leaders in History and the Humanities and a scholar with a major international reputation. Her research on early modern history is characterised by archival depth, historiographical range and methodological innovation, placing Irish history simultaneously within British, European, Atlantic World and Indian Ocean World contexts.

Her highly significant contributions to the study of early modern Ireland and empire are evidenced by her publications with the most prestigious presses and in highly regarded journals, by her visiting professorships and fellowships in the UK, USA, Brazil, South Africa, and India, by her grant capture, and by her global outreach through collaborative research and invited lectures.

Professor Ohlmeyer was the driving force behind the ‘1641 Depositions Project’, a ground-breaking form of public history which has meshed the 17th century Irish experience with Ireland’s contemporary peace process.

She has been the PI or co-PI for 25 research and research infrastructure projects, with awards totalling in the region of €22 million. The EU-funded SHAPE-ID project on inter- and trans-disciplinarity has been recognised as having ‘exceptional results with significant immediate or potential impact’ and the ‘quality of work produced is world-class’. In 2020 she was the PI for a Horizon 2020, MSCA, co-fund programme, entitled Human+, which was ranked second in Europe and places the human experience at the centre of technological research.

Her own incisive research over several decades led to the singular distinction of her delivering the 2021 James Ford Lectures in Oxford. The Ford Lectures date from 1896 and over the years fewer than 10 women have delivered them. The last person from a university in Ireland invited to give the Fords was F.S.L. Lyons in 1977. Professor Ohlmeyer’s next book, ‘Ireland, Empire and the Early Modern World’, based on the Ford Lectures, will appear with Oxford University Press later this year.

Professor Ohlmeyer is passionate about History and has demonstrated leadership to the discipline nationally as a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission and as President of the Irish Historical Society and internationally through the Royal Historical Society and other collaborations. She has also built extensive and sustainable inter-institutional and inter-disciplinary research capacity in the Arts and Humanities in Ireland through her leadership of the Trinity Long Room Hub (which she helped to conceive in 2006), in Europe (especially through her work in Digital Humanities), and globally as part of international collaborations around democracy and through bodies like the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes.

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer champions and supports research and scholarship, promoting understanding and awareness of the importance of science, arts and the humanities to Irish society and beyond. She is the Erasmus Smith Professor of History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin, former Chair of the Irish Research Council, Director of the Trinity Long Room hub (2015-2020), and Trinity’s first Vice-President of Global Relations (2011-2014) and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Jane Ohlmeyer writes fluently and elegantly, she has a proven record of dedicated teaching at undergraduate and post-graduate levels, and through her ground-breaking ‘1641 Depositions’ project, she has created a legacy and has changed the humanities’ research landscape for generations.