Adam Hanna is Senior Lecturer in Irish Literature and the author of two monographs, Northern Irish Poetry and Domestic Space (Palgrave, 2015) and Poetry, Politics, and the Law in Modern Ireland (Syracuse University Press, 2022). His most recent book received the Honourable Mention in the 2023 Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature, awarded by the American Conference for Irish Studies.

He is the co-editor of three collections: Architectural Space and the Imagination (with Jane Griffiths, Wadham College, Oxford University, Palgrave, 2020); Law and Literature: The Irish Case (with Eugene McNulty, Dublin City University, Liverpool University Press, 2022); and an anthology of ekphrastic poetry, The Echoing Gallery (Redcliffe Press, 2013).

He joined the School of English at UCC as an IRC Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in 2015. Before this, he taught in the English departments of Trinity College Dublin, the University of Bristol and the University of Aberdeen. He has also trained and practised as a solicitor, an experience that informs his research on law and literature.

External Roles

• Book Reviews Editor of the Irish University Review (2025-)
• External Examiner, English MA, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick (2025-)
• International Treasurer of the American Conference of Irish Studies (2022-) 
• Member, editorial board of Cork University Press (2024)

Internal Roles

• International Officer for English
• Member of the second year committee (head of committee 2022-25)

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Supervision

• Danny Shanahan, 'Disturbed Areas: Literature and Emergency Law in Kashmir and Northern Ireland' (IRC postdoc, research to be published as a monograph with Bloomsbury in 2026)
• Chiara Valcelli, 'Embodied Language: Dante, Joyce, and Representations of the Human Body and Mind' (in progress)
• Clodagh Troelstra Heffernan, 'Poetics of Defiance: Protest Writing and Dissent Culture in Contemporary Working-Class Ireland' (in progress)
  
• Holly Walker-Dunseith, 'Revival: Traditional Medicine in the Works of Augusta Gregory, W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge' (Doctorate awarded 2023, thesis published as a monograph with Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

His chief area of interest is modern Irish poetry. His major research projects to date are on the manuscripts of Seamus Heaney, law and literature, and space and place. 

In 2018 he took up an HEA/Government of Ireland mobility award that enabled him to develop Irish literary archives as teaching resources with academics and librarians from the College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts and Boston College. In 2021 he was awarded an Irish Research Council New Foundations grant for a project entitled 'Seamus Heaney and the Visual Arts'.

The Manuscripts of Seamus Heaney

He is currently writing a study of the Literary Papers of Seamus Heaney (National Library of Ireland), focusing on moments of hesitation and indecision. In 2025 he presented some of this research at NYU Glucksman Ireland House and in 2026 will present it at the French ERIN seminar series (Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III)

Law and Literature 

He has written a monograph entitled Poetry, Politics and the Law in Modern Ireland (Syracuse University Press, 2022), an original exploration of how modern Irish poetry has been shaped by, and responded to, the laws of both of the island’s jurisdictions. He has also (with Eugene McNulty) co-edited a collection on law and literature in Ireland, Law and Literature: The Irish Case (Liverpool University Press, 2022). In 2023 he gave the address at the first public event held in the Irish Senate, a celebration of the centenary of the award of Yeats's Nobel Prize. In 2024 he gave an invited lecture on law and poetry at the Columbia University Irish Studies Seminar, New York.

Space and Place

He is the author of Northern Irish Poetry and Domestic Space (Palgrave, 2015), which he adapted from his doctoral thesis (Bristol, 2012). Relatedly, he co-organised the conference 'The House in the Mind: Architecture and the Imagination' (Oxford, March 2016), which formed the basis of the co-edited (with Jane Griffiths) collection Architectural Space and the Imagination: Houses in Literature and Art from Classical to Contemporary (Palgrave, 2020). He was invited to speak about this research at the Yeats Summer School in Sligo in 2023.

He also has research interests in ekphrasis, literature and social class, and the use of literary archives as teaching resources.

In recent years he has given, or will soon give, invited visiting lectures on Irish literature to students at:

Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle (2022 and 2026) 

Boston College and Northeastern University Irish Summer Studies Group (2019 to 2025)

Agder University, Norway (2021, and as invited Erasmus lecturer, 2024)

City University of New York (2024)

Montclair University, New Jersey (2024)

Holy Cross, Massachusetts (2018 and 2022)

The German department, University College Cork (2022)

The University of Lille (2022)

The University of Sheffield (2022)

The University of Shanghai (twice) (2021)

The University of Malta (2021)

The Law faculty, University College Cork (2020)

In collaboration with Professor Paige Reynolds (College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts), he created 'Second Cities | Second Thoughts' in 2019. This is an innovative digital resource that is aimed at international students. It contains draft materials by and interviews with a range of poets.

University College Cork (2015-present)

He co-ordinates the following courses:

The Irish Literary Revival and Irish Modernism (third year lecture course)

Introduction to Irish Literature (lecture course for visiting students) 

Irish Poetry Since Yeats (third year seminar course)

He has coordinated the following courses:

Early Start: Literatures in Ireland (seminar course for visiting students, 2017-2023) 

Northern Irish Literature and the Troubles (second year seminar course, 2017-2024)

He contributes to the following courses:

Contemporary Irish Literature (third year poetry lectures)

Literature in Time (first year lectures on Seamus Heaney)

MA classes on modern Irish poetry

Dissertation module (third year course)

He has supervised MA dissertations on Elizabeth Bowen; ecocriticism; place in contemporary Irish poetry; political protest in modern Irish poetry; and representations of the Troubles in poetry.

He has in the past taught on these courses:

Introduction to Modern Literature (first year lectures on Yeats and Heaney)

Special Topics in Creative Practice (second year lecture and seminar course)