Since completing her PhD at Trinity College in Ireland, Christine Kinealy has worked in educational and research institutes in Dublin, Belfast and England and, more recently, in the USA. In September 2013, Professor Kinealy was appointed the founding Director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
Professor Kinealy has published extensively on modern Ireland, with a focus on the Great Hunger. These publications include, This Great Calamity. The Great Irish Famine 1845-52, Repeal and Revolution. 1848 in Ireland, and Daniel O’Connell and Abolition. The Saddest People the Sun Sees, and her most recent book, Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland. The Kindness of Strangers. More recently, she completed a graphic novel on the Great Hunger, entitled, ‘The Bad Times’ or, in its Irish language version, ‘An Droch Shaol’. Professor Kinealy is also a Director of the Frederick Douglass Ireland Project, and is currently completing a book on ‘Frederick Douglass in Ireland’.
Professor Kinealy has lectured throughout the world on the Great Hunger. In 1997, she was invited to speak to invited audiences in both in the British Houses of Parliament and in the American Congress on this topic. Since 2013, Professor Kinealy has been named one of the top 100 educators in Irish America. In March 2014, she was also inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame. Earlier this this year, she won an Emmy for her contribution to the documentary, ‘The Great Hunger and the Irish Diaspora’.
Professor Kinealy has two children, Siobhán and Ciarán, who were born in Dublin and Belfast respectively. She shares her live with a a dog called Cú. And she is a keen soccer fan.
