Sarah O’Brien is a cultural historian with special interest in 19th and 20th century Irish emigration. She received a PhD in History from MIC (2009), and a B.Ed in Education (2004) . Her doctoral research was funded by the Irish Research Council and investigated Irish associationalism in post-World War II Birmingham. Her subsequent research on the Irish in Argentina won an outstanding research award from Riocht na Midhe and was published as a monograph in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Sarah has published her work in Irish Studies Review, Dublin Review of Books, New Hibernia Review, MIdland History and the Irish Times. Prior to her appointment in MIC she was Lecturer in Trinity College Dublin’s School of Linguistics, Speech and Communications Sciences (2015-2019). From 2012 to 2015, she was Director of Bilingual Education in Northern New Mexico College. She has been an invited Visiting Professor in the School of Sociology, University of Buenos Aires (2017) and was Visiting Professor in Department of Applied Linguistics, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil in 2019.

Sarah is currently writing a monograph on Figures of Memory in Irish Emigrant memoir 1856-1947, for publication with Indiana University Press.