Oisín Wall
Research Profile
Biography
Dr Oisín Wall is a historian of marginalised communities in 20th Century Ireland and Britain. He is a Lecturer at University College Cork's Radical Humanities Laboratory and the School of History, and also holds a Wellcome Fellowship for the project 'We are the Heroin Capital of Europe:' Marginal Communities, Health, Identity, and the Opioid Epidemic in Twentieth-Century Ireland.
Wall has written two monographs. His book on the prisoners' rights movement in late-20th century Ireland, Prisoners' Bodies: Activism, Health, and the Prisoners' Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972-85, will be published by McGill-Queens University Press in 2024. His first monograph explored the intersection of institutional psychiatry and the counter-culture in 1960's London (The British Anti-Psychiatrists, Routledge: 2017). He has published articles on the histories of prison activism, drug-use, and psychiatry; as well as museum studies and education. Beyond his academic publications he has curated three major international exhibitions on prison and medical history at the Science Museum (London) and Kilmainham Gaol Museum (Dublin). Wall is also a member of the Society for the Social History of Medicine's executive committee and the editor of the society's Gazette.
If you would like to discuss doctoral and post-doctoral mentorship feel free to email me. I am interested in supervising research related to:
Wall has written two monographs. His book on the prisoners' rights movement in late-20th century Ireland, Prisoners' Bodies: Activism, Health, and the Prisoners' Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972-85, will be published by McGill-Queens University Press in 2024. His first monograph explored the intersection of institutional psychiatry and the counter-culture in 1960's London (The British Anti-Psychiatrists, Routledge: 2017). He has published articles on the histories of prison activism, drug-use, and psychiatry; as well as museum studies and education. Beyond his academic publications he has curated three major international exhibitions on prison and medical history at the Science Museum (London) and Kilmainham Gaol Museum (Dublin). Wall is also a member of the Society for the Social History of Medicine's executive committee and the editor of the society's Gazette.
If you would like to discuss doctoral and post-doctoral mentorship feel free to email me. I am interested in supervising research related to:
- Drugs history/history of intoxication
- Prison history
- History of psychiatry
- History of sub- or counter-cultures
- History of psychiatry
- Marginalised communities' histories including:
- People who are, or have been, incarcerated
- People who use drugs
- Communities of sex workers
- LGBTQI+ communities
- The Traveller community
Research Grants
Project | Funding Body |
Start Date | End Date | Award | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
'We are the heroin capital of Europe': Marginal Communities, Health, Identity, and the Opioid Epidemic in Twentieth-Century Ireland | Wellcome Trust | 15-NOV-21 | 15-NOV-23 | €221,665.00 | |
'We are the heroin capital of Europe': Marginal Communities, Health, Identity, and the Opioid Epidemic in Twentieth-Century Ireland. | Foreign Research Institute | 03-APR-23 | 31-OCT-25 | €30,265.00 | |
Living Inside: Six voices from the history of Irish prison reform | 01-APR-19 | 20-SEP-20 | €900.00 | ||
Medicine Galleries Research Strategy | Wellcome Trust | 01-DEC-16 | 01-JAN-20 | €350,000.00 | |
Anti-University of London | Art & Humanities Research Council | 01-SEP-14 | 01-SEP-15 | €1,150.00 |
Books
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
(2024) | Prisoners' Bodies: Activism, Health, and the Prisoners' Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972-1985.
Oisín Wall (2024) Prisoners' Bodies: Activism, Health, and the Prisoners' Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972-1985. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. [ Publisher's Version] [Details] |
|
(2017) | The British Anti-Psychiatrists: From Institutional Psychiatry to the Counter-Culture, 1960-1971.
Oisín Wall (2017) The British Anti-Psychiatrists: From Institutional Psychiatry to the Counter-Culture, 1960-1971. London and New York: Routledge. [ Publisher's Version] [Details] |
Book Chapters
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
(2020) | 'Obscuring Psychiatry: Basaglia and the British Anti-Psychiatrists'
Oisín Wall (2020) 'Obscuring Psychiatry: Basaglia and the British Anti-Psychiatrists' In: John Foot and Tom Burns (eds). Basaglia: From asylum to community, international experiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [DOI] [Details] |
|
(2019) | 'Hearing Distant Voices: Psychiatry, Asylums and the Limits of History'
Oisín Wall (2019) 'Hearing Distant Voices: Psychiatry, Asylums and the Limits of History' In: Natasha McEnroe (eds). Medicine: An Imperfect Science. London: Scala. [Details] |
Peer Reviewed Journals
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
(2025) | ''Brought in Dead': Post-Mortem Glimpses of the Early 'Heroin Epidemic' in Ireland, 1971-1983'
Oisín Wall (2025) ''Brought in Dead': Post-Mortem Glimpses of the Early 'Heroin Epidemic' in Ireland, 1971-1983'. Social History Of Medicine : The Journal Of The Society For The Social History Of Medicine, [ Publisher's Version] [DOI] [Details] |
|
(2023) | '"It Has Made Me Think": Engaging the Public with the History of Health in the Modern Irish Prison'
Catherine Cox and Oisín Wall (2023) '"It Has Made Me Think": Engaging the Public with the History of Health in the Modern Irish Prison'. Journal of Medical Humanities, [Details] |
|
(2021) | 'From 'Opium Smoking Orgies' to 'Junkie Babies': Representations of Heroin-Use in Ireland, 1915-90'
Oisín Wall and James Grannell (2021) 'From 'Opium Smoking Orgies' to 'Junkie Babies': Representations of Heroin-Use in Ireland, 1915-90'. Cultural and Social History: The Journal of the Social History Society, [Details] |
|
(2019) | 'Living Inside: Displaying difficult subjects and working with academic institutions'
Oisín Wall and Brian Crowley (2019) 'Living Inside: Displaying difficult subjects and working with academic institutions'. 26 :22-26 [Details] |
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(2019) | ''Embarrassing the State': The 'Ordinary' Prisoner Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972-6'
Oisín Wall (2019) ''Embarrassing the State': The 'Ordinary' Prisoner Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972-6'. Journal of Contemporary History, 55 (2):388-410 [DOI] [Details] |
|
(2017) | 'The birth and death of Villa 21'
Oisín Wall (2017) 'The birth and death of Villa 21'. History Of Psychiatry, 24 (3):326-340 [Details] |
Professional Associations
Association | Function | From / To | |
---|---|---|---|
Royal Historical Society | Fellow | 30-SEP-21 / | |
Society for the SocialHistory of Medicine | Gazette Editor | 01-SEP-22 / |
Committees
Committee | Function | From / To | |
---|---|---|---|
Society for the Social History of Medicine | Executive committee member | 2022 / 2026 |
Employment
Employer | Position | From / To | |
---|---|---|---|
Science Museum | Research Curator of Medicine | 01-MAR-15 / 26-JAN-18 | |
University College Dublin | Postdoctoral Research Fellow | 29-JAN-18 / 30-SEP-21 | |
University College Dublin | Wellcome Research Fellow | 01-NOV-21 / | |
University College Cork | Lecturer in Radical Humanities | 01-SEP-22 / |
Education
Year | Institution | Qualification | Subject | |
---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | University College Cork | BA | History and Philosophy | |
2014 | King's College London | PhD | History | |
2009 | Birkbeck College London/ London Consortium | MRes | Humanities and Cultural Studies |
Outreach Activities
Description | |
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This gallery explored stories from the history of medicine through objects from the Wellcome and Science Museum's medicine collections. |
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This exhibition told the stories of six ordinary people whose lives were entwined with the history of prison reform in Ireland. |
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I co-curated this permanent gallery which explores how medicine shapes, and is shaped by, communities. |
Teaching Interests
I teach contemporary Irish history and the histories of marginalised communities, particularly people who have been incarcerated.
Research supervision:
Research supervision:
- I am interested in supervising research related to marginalised communities in 20th century Ireland, for instance:
- People who are, or have been, incarcerated
- People who use drugs
- Communities of sex workers
- LGBTQI+ communities
- The Traveller community
- I am also interested in supervising histories of medicine, including psychiatry.