Educated in India, Malaysia, Australia, Ireland and Canada, David Ryan, completely his BA (Toronto) in 1987 and his PhD (NUI) in 1992. He subsequently worked in England at De Montfort University. He has taught a wide range of modules on various aspects of US foreign policy, American history and international history. In the UK and Ireland he has maintained an interest in graduate education and previously served as Head of Graduate Studies and was the Associate Dean for the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences and head of the Graduate School within the College. From 2011 to 2014 he served as Vice Head, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences. From September 2014 he served as Head, School of History including the disciplines of History and History of Art. International Relations and European Studies were founded by the School in the 1980s and History also makes a significant contribution to the Politics programme in UCC.  He has published extensively on contemporary history and US foreign policy concentrating on the US interventions in the post-Vietnam era, including Central America, Angola, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and the broader Middle East amongst other places.  Professor Ryan maintains an active engagement with a variety of professional associations and has acted as Vice-Chair and Chair of the Transatlantic Studies Association with membership from throughout Europe, the Americas and Australia. He serves as Senior Associate Editor of the Association's The Journal of Transatlantic Studies published by Routledge.  He also serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of International History, Diplomacy and Statecraft, the Cambridge University Press book series on the Global Middle East and McGill University series on Transatlantic Studies.  He has lectured in Ireland, the UK, France, Norway, Canada, The Netherlands, and the United States including at the US Department of State and at the President Carter 30th Anniversary Conference in Athens, Georgia. 

UCC Roles

2011-2014, Chair, Academic Council Graduate Studies Committee

2012-2015, (Periodic) Acting Head College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences

2011-2014, Vice Head, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences (Learning and Teaching, Curriculum Development)

2007-2010, Associate Dean, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences

2007-2010, Head, Graduate School, CACSSS

2014-2019, Head, School of History

2012-2013, Acting Head, School of History, UCC (September 2012 to January 2013)

Research interests: History and Diplomacy of the United States; US Foreign Policy; US intervention in regional conflicts; Transatlantic relations; Collective Memory and US History; Vietnam, Central America, Middle East, Angola; Historiography; Intellectual and Cultural History.

History and Diplomacy of the United States; US Foreign Policy; US intervention in regional conflicts; Transatlantic relations; Collective Memory and US History; Cold War, Vietnam, Central America, Middle East, Angola; Historiography; Intellectual and Cultural History

John Andreas Olsen, ‘Airpower and the Gulf War,’ De Montfort University (2000), Published as: Strategic Airpower in Desert Storm (Frank Cass 2003)

Ian Herrington, ‘The SOE, Norway and World War II’, De Montfort University (2001) Published: Special Operations in Norway: SOE and Resistance in World War II (Bloomsbury, 2021)

David Fitzgerald, ‘Learning to Forget?  The US Army and  Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq,’            UCC (2010).  Published as: Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq (Stanford Security Studies, 2013)

Michael Cullinane, ‘Fighting for “Freedom”: The Language of “Liberty” and the US Anti-Imperialist Movement, 1898-1909,’               UCC (2010).  Published as: Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism (Springer 2012)

Ivan McLoughlin, ‘A New World A New American Foreign Policy The Carter Administration, Nicaragua, and the Legacy of the Vietnam War, 1977-1981,’ UCC (2012)

William Stedding, ‘Religion and US Foreign Policy During the Presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan,’ UCC (2012).  Published as: Presidential Faith and Foreign Policy: Jimmy Carter the Disciple and Ronald Reagan the Alchemist (Palgrave, 2014)

Steven O’Sullivan, ‘The Ford Administration, Angola and the Perception of Post Vietnam US Credibility, 1974-1976,’ UCC (2014).  Published as: Kissinger, Angola and US-African Foreign Policy: The Unintentional Realist (Routledge, 2019)

Barbara O’Donoghue, ‘Ford, Carter and Cambodia: US Foreign Policy and the Khmer Rouge,’ UCC (2015) 

Geraldine Kidd, ‘Eleanor Roosevelt: Supporting Zion, Denying Palestine,’ UCC           (2015).  Published as:             Eleanor Roosevelt: Palestine, Israel and Human Rights (Routledge, 2017)

Jacquline Fitzgibbon, ‘Justifying Jihad: US Politics, Propaganda and the Afghan Mujahedeen,’             UCC (2015).  Published as: US Politics, Propaganda and the Afghan Mujahedeen: Domestic Politics and the Afghan War (I.B. Tauris, 2020)

James Cronin, ‘A Reluctant Pacifist: Thomas Merton and the Cold War Letters, October 1961–April 1962,’ UCC (2021)          

Liam O’Brien, ‘Life from Above? An Investigation into the Genesis and Deployment of No-Fly Zones During the 1990s,’ UCC (2022)             

Rebecca Crunden, ‘Gender and the US Military in the Korean War Era, 1950-1953,’ UCC (2023)

Elizabeth Tanner, ‘Embedded Ideologies: Nixon, Kissinger, and the South Asia Crisis 1971,’ UCC (2025)

Post-Doctorate                                                      

Martin Wall, ‘Exploring New Dynamics in Civil-Military Cooperation and Emergency Humanitarian Aid in the Context of Climate Change,’ UCC (2019)

Andrew Linnane, ‘The Reagan Reversal and Western Europe, 1984-1988,’ UCC