Sociology

Contact Details

Title	Senior Lecturer
Address	Sociology University College Cork Cork Ireland
Telephone:	+353-21-490-3000
Fax:	00353-21-4902904
Email:	ei.ccu@nagiruoh.n
Address	Sociology Dept of Sociology Safari, Donovans Road University College Cork
Telephone:	00353-21-4902904
Email:	ei.ccu@nagiruoh.n

Biography:

Dr. Niamh Hourigan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University College Cork. Her most recent publication, Understanding Limerick: Social Exclusion and Change (Cork University Press, 2011) is an edited collection on crime and disadvantage in Limerick. The book features in-depth community level study of fear and feuding in the city conducted by Dr. Hourigan between 2007 and 2010. She received a UCC College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science Special Research Commendation Award for this project. In 2010, she co-authored The TEACH Report: Traveller Education and Adults: Crisis, Challenge and Change (Niamh Hourigan and Maria Campbell, NATC, 2010) which was commissioned by the National Association of Travellers' Centres. This report examines the experiences of Travellers as they attempt to progress into mainstream further education and tracks a variety of obstacles they encounter including external prejudice and internal feuding. In 2013, she will publish a monograph on work, family and political consciousness in austerity Ireland. 

These publications build on her previous research in the fields of Political Sociology and Media and Cultural Studies. She has published four books. Escaping the Global Village: Media, Language and Protest (Lexington Books, 2004) was the first comparative study of minority language media campaigns in Europe. Social Movements and Ireland (with Linda Connolly) was published in 2006 by Manchester University Press. This edited collection featured contributions for Ireland's leading sociologists and documented a range of new research on social protest in Irish society. Her PhD (A Comparison of the Campaigns for Raidio na Gaeltachta and Teilifís na Gaeilge) was the first book to be published in the Irish Sociological Mongraphs series. Most recently, she co-edited Minority Language Media: Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies (with Mike Cormack, Multilingual Matters, 2007). The book has been widely reviewed in leading journals including the European Journal of Communications and Media, Culture and Society where Burcu Sumer states:

Niamh Hourigan neatly portrays how, under circumstances where policies and institutions are not responsive to the demands of minority language communities, the creation of trans-national diffusion and collaboration networks become crucial in keeping debate and political action alive...Her contribution is particularly important since it makes us further question how we should alter our ideas about what the public sphere is or should be about...Taken as a whole, this is an important and useful book, which not only lays out the key concerns in the study of minority language media, but also suggest fields of future scholarship. As identified by Niamh Hourigan in the concluding chapter of the book, well-designed comparative research and an on-going scholarly reflection on the effects of globalisation on minority language media will be central to developing future scholarship...

Niamh Hourigan is a Chair of the Editorial Subcommittee of Cork University Press and she frequently acts as peer reviewer for Manchester University Press, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Youth and Society, Crime and Social Change, Contemporary Sociology, European Societies and Sociology - the Journal of the British Sociological Association. She has been involved in a range of research projects funded by Irish Aid, Universities Ireland and the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She is currently supervising three doctoral students and two MA students. Between 2009 and 2011, she was General Co-Editor of the Irish Journal of Sociology.

Having worked as a journalist and radio presenter while completing her PhD, Niamh Hourigan continues to be an active contributor to the national media and has appeared on Frontline, Tonight with Vincent Browne, Morning Ireland, Today with Pat Kenny, The Last Word and The Message (BBC Radio 4) among other programmes. She has also written for the Irish Times, Irish Examiner and Irish Independent. In 2007, she presented a four part series on education on RTÉ Radio One.