Dr Richard Butler
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BA (Cantab.) MPhil PhD (Cantab.) FHEA FRHistS
My research focuses largely on modern Ireland, c. 1800-1960. I grew up in west Cork and went on to study structural engineering and later history of architecture at St. John's College, Cambridge. I stayed in Cambridge for my graduate studies, researching British colonial architecture in India before embarking on a PhD focused on public architecture in nineteenth-century Ireland. In between I worked variously in retail, as a pipeline engineer, a copy editor, a journalist, and as head of a small architectural conservation non-profit. My doctoral research was funded by the Gates Foundation, which I combined with an Fulbright scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the supervision of Prof. James S. Donnelly, Jr.. My work and academic interests have allowed me to live at various points in my life in the United Kingdom, Nepal, India, the United States, and Ireland.
I took up a lectureship at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, in 2015, and was later promoted there to Associate Professor of Urban History. During my time at Leicester I had visiting fellowships at the Moore Institute, University of Galway, the Centre for Urban Studies, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (MSU), Vadodara, India, and at University College Cork. In 2021 I joined Mary Immaculate College as Director of Research.
Outside of my academic work I am involved in a range of voluntary and sporting organisations in west Cork, where I live with my wife and daughter. These include the Bantry Sailing Club, Bantry Tidy Towns, the Drimoleague Walkways Committee, and the Bantry Inshore Search & Rescue lifeboat. In my spare time I help run a small family farm.
