Staff profile

I am currently an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion. Prior to this, I worked as the FMDM Fellow in the History of Catholicism at the Centre for Catholic Studies between 2020 and 2024. Between 20215 and 2020, I worked as a historical researcher with the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation in Ireland and previously as an occasional lecturer and tutor at University College Dublin, archivist with the Clonfert Diocese in county Galway, Ireland and the Research student in Irish history at the National Library of Ireland.

To date, my own research interests have focused upon the dynamics of agrarian radicalism, class relations in the rural countryside, the land question, local, religious and rural history in Britain and Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and I have published extensively on these themes.

While FMDM Fellow in the History of Catholicism, I was researching and writing the history of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood through the prism of the Franciscan tradition and global Catholicism. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it explores the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood and its nineteenth century antecedents through the various prisms of Catholic internationalism, social movements, philanthropy, medical and sacred spaces and how their evolution and change impacted upon individual and community lives while remaining faithful to its Franciscan missionary approach. It also assesses its history within the wider context of local, national and transnational expressions of Catholicism; particularly during periods of significant changes and challenges for the Roman Catholic Church. This research includes material from nearly forty archives in ten different countries. This forthcoming book is due out towards the end of 2025, with an additional article 'The Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood and the provision of healthcare in provincial Ireland, 1842-1970' due to be published in the Historical Journal, also in 2025.

I recently returned to living in Ireland and am writing a short book on a landed estate in the northwest of county Donegal, Ireland between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries.  It is a case study of how national and international events had an impact on the social, political and economic life of a medium-sized estate in a very isolated part of Ireland. In addition, I am researching articles on the social services movement and the Catholic Church in twentieth century Ireland and a Catholic emigrant employment agency for Irish people in London during the long 1960s. 

Authored book

• Casey, B. (2018). Class and Community in Provincial Ireland, 1851–1914. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71120-1

Chapter in book

• Casey, B. (2020). The impact of agrarian radicalism on land reform in Scotland and Ireland, 1879–1903. In M. Coombe, J. Glass, & A. Tindey (Eds.), Land reform in Scotland: History, law and policy (56-73). Edinburgh University Press
• Casey, B. (2018). Aspects of life in Ireland, 1900–1918. In Ballinasloe and district remembers 1914-1918 (368-376). KPW
• Casey, B. (2018). The role of the Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland clergy in the distribution of relief during the 1822 Famine in County Roscommon. In R. Farrell, K. O’Conor, & M. Potter (Eds.), Roscommon: History and Society (349-365). Geography Publications
• Casey, B. (2016). John Sweetman and the Irish land question, 1876–82. In B. Casey (Ed.), Lords, land and labourers: the Big Houses and landed estates of Royal Meath (171-186). The History Press
• Casey, B. (2015). Re-organised Ireland: After the Famine. In F. Rynne, & A. Pole (Eds.), La grande famine en Irlande (81-92). Atlande
• Casey, B. (2015). Ada English and Cumman na mBan. In Galway and Cumman na mBan: County Galway dimensions (17-18). Galway County Council
• Casey, B. (2015). The Great Famine, 1845-7. In F. Rynne, & A. Pole (Eds.), La grande famine en Irlande (69-80). Atlande

Edited book

• Casey, B. (Ed.). (2016). Lords, land and labourers: The Big Houses and landed estates of Royal Meath. Dublin, The History Press
• Casey, B. (Ed.). (2013). Defying the law of the land: Agrarian radicals in Irish History. The History Press

Journal Article

• Casey, B. (online). Michael Davitt’s second tour of the Scottish Highlands, April 1887
• Casey, B. (2017). The political career of John Sweetman, 1885–1903
• Casey, B. (2016). Constructing Political Consciousness in the West of Ireland, 1876–79: The Case of the Ballinasloe Tenant Defence Association. New hibernia review, 20(1), 55-76. https://doi.org/10.1353/nhr.2016.0011
• Casey, B. (2016). The decline and fall of the Clancarty estate, east Galway, 1891–1923
• Casey, B. (2014). Matt Harris and the Irish Land Question, 1876–1882. Rural History, 25(2), 183-201. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956793314000053
• Casey, B. (2013). Selected list of writings on Irish social and economic history published in 2012. Irish Economic and Social History, 40(1), 98-113. https://doi.org/10.7227/iesh.40.1.7

Other (Print)

• Casey, B. (2013). Matt Harris and the Ballinasloe Tenant Defence Association