Maureen O'Connor (University College Cork)

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Maureen O’Connor is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English in University College Cork. She is the author of The Female and the Species: The Animal in Irish Women’s Writing (2010) and of Edna O’Brien: The Art of Fiction (2021). She has co-edited a number of field-defining volumes, including, with Derek Gladwin, a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, “Irish Studies and the Environmental Humanities” (2018); with Kathryn Laing and Sinéad Mooney, of Edna O’Brien: New Critical Perspectives (2006); with Lisa Colletta, of Wild Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna O’Brien (2006); and, with Tadhg Foley, of Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture, and Empire (2006). She is currently writing a volume for inclusion in the Cork University Press series, “Síreacht: Longings for Another Ireland,” on the topic of Animals.

Mark McGowan (University of Toronto)

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Mark McGowan is a Professor of History and Celtic Studies at the University of Toronto. His recent research has been concerned with the North American fate of the 1490 tenants from 273 families who left the Mahon estate in Co. Roscommon during the Great Irish Famine in 1847, as well as the fate of the orphans within the greater migration to Quebec of that year. In 2022 he co-edited Hunger and Hope: The Irish Famine Migration from Strokestown, Roscommon, in 1847 with Jason King and Christine Kinealy. Mark is renowned for his work on the Catholic Church in Canada, the response of Canada’s Irish Catholics to the Great War, and Ireland’s Great Hunger, including the lasting impact of the famine’s mass migration on Canada. He has also won multiple awards for his teaching and writing.

Joseph S. Mancinelli (LiUNA)

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Joseph S. Mancinelli is LiUNA International Vice President Canadian Director & Regional Manager for Central and Eastern Canada, a diverse union with over 500,000 members, of which over 100,000 are in Canada. He is also Chair of the Labourers’ Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada (LPF). He is President of the LiUNA Ontario District Council, Chair of the Labourers’ Central and Eastern Canada Organizing Fund (CECOF) and is a Trustee on the LiUNA Tri-Funds (Health & Safety, Training and LECET). President of LiUNA Local 837, his home local, of which he has been a member since 1978; Joe also oversees many of its related entities, including its Health & Welfare Plan, its Training Trust Fund and LiUNA Hamilton Association. He is also President of the LiUNA Group which oversees the Liuna Gardens and Liuna Station Banquet Facilities and its long-term care division overseeing Queens Garden and Regina Gardens. Joe is a champion of historical causes. Through his vision and tenacity, LiUNA has restored several of Hamilton’s historical sites including the CN Rail Station and the Lister Block.X

Francis Ludlow (Trinity College Dublin)

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Francis Ludlow is Associate Professor of Medieval Environmental History at Trinity College Dublin and co-founder of the Irish Environmental History Network and Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities. He is a Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-sponsored project “Human History of Marine Life: Extraction, Knowledge, Drivers & Consumption of Marine Resources, c.100 BCE to c.1860 CE” and the Irish Research Research Council-sponsored project “Climates of Conflict in Ancient Babylonia”. He has co-edited Meath:

History and Society (2015) with Arlene Crampsie and Historical Geography, GIScience and Textual Analysis (2020) with Charles Travis and Ferenc Gyuris.

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