Originally from Kerry, Úna Kavanagh has lived in Cork, London and Houston, Texas before returning to Galway in 2010.

Úna is currently engaged as a PhD candidate in a scholarly biographical study of Augusta Dillon née Crofton, Lady Clonbrock (1839-1928) working with Dr Nessa Cronin at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI, Galway.

Úna completed a BA Connect with Irish Studies at NUI, Galway in 2017. As part of this undergraduate programme she spent a semester at the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster where she studied English and the History of Irish Photography with Dr Gail Baylis. This was where she was first officially introduced to the Clonbrock Photographic Collection and its important link to the history of Irish photography. This research focused on Anglo-Irish identity and the Clonbrock Photographic Collection. For this semester she was awarded an International Study Scholarship (Non- Erasmus) from NUI, Galway. In 2014, she received an Irish Studies’ Fellowship toattend the Yeats’ Summer School as part of her BA studies.

In 2018, she completed a History Masters at NUI, Galway. She was awarded the 2018 Full P. J. Mara History Masters Scholarship at NUI, Galway. In 2017, she was awarded a MA Humanities Scholarship. Her MA dissertation topic focused on how anti-Treaty internees articulated versions of masculinities and their ideologies through contributions to an autograph book from those interned in Tintown Camp No. 2 at the Curragh during 1923.