Wild salmon world-wide are in jeopardy, their existence threatened by a host of factors, from dams blocking their migratory patterns, to ocean warming caused by climate change, to diseases spread by farmed salmon. Atlantic salmon in particular are in freefall, their population fell by more than half between the 1980s and the 2010s. The lives of salmon are intricately bound up with those of humans and other land and sea creatures. Their loss fundamentally impacts wider ecologies, societies, cultures and economies. This project offers an historical approach to this crisis, tracing the ecological, social, and cultural impacts of the decline of wild Atlantic Salmon, through case studies of three rivers in Ireland; the Lee, the Erne and the Corrib. It will approaches historical time in a way that centres salmon rather than human temporalities.
I am have recently completed postdoctoral project on the history of hydro-electricity in mid-century Ireland, focusing on the rivers Lee, Erne and Liffey. The research project considers the impact of three hydro-electric schemes built on the rivers Liffey, Erne and Lee between 1937 and 1952. The unique assemblage of interdependent living creatures and human economies that characterised these river landscapes was permanently transformed by these dams. Due to their rare, and threatened ecologies, these riparian landscapes have long been the subject of scientific studies. Yet little has been done to marry this scientific knowledge with the social and environmental history of these dams and the relationships between humans, plants, and animals before and after their construction. This project will address this imbalance. This is a stratigraphic story. I am drawing upon a rich source base, including archives of government departments and energy companies, folklore and oral history, and analysis of landscapes as living archives to produce a stratigraphic methodology for analysing the implications of human interventions on landscapes. I am preparing two articles and a book for publication based on this research.
I am have also recently submitted a manuscript based on my PhD research to Manchester University Press. This book explores the failure of global giving during the great Irish Famine. The suffering caused by the Famine prompted mass and unprecedented global sympathy. Donations were sent from miners in Wales, sailors on the Pacific Ocean, the British royal family, formerly enslaved people in the Caribbean, incarcerated communities from London to Norfolk island, and children both rich and poor. These offerings travelled through global networks facilitated by the British empire, the global Catholic Church, transnational activist groups, and the Irish diaspora, transformed from money into relief for the suffering Irish.
Yet despite the global scale, and the exceptional level of fundraising from across socio-economic, gender and ethnic divides, voluntary relief failed to meaningfully address the suffering of Irish famine victims. My book explores why voluntary famine relief failed. In doing so, it addresses enduring and universal questions regarding how best to provide relief in times of crisis.
