Jane G. V. McGaughey

Principal Investigator

Jane G. V. McGaughey is the Johnson Chair of Québec and Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University and an Associate Professor of Diaspora Studies. She is the author of Violent Loyalties: Manliness, Migration, and the Irish in the Canadas, 1798-1841 (LUP, 2020), Ulster’s Men: Protestant Unionist Masculinities and Militarization in the North of Ireland, 1912-23 (MQUP, 2012), and co-editor of Ireland and Masculinities in History (Palgrave, 2019). Her research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture, the Canada-UK Foundation and Eccles Centre for American Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ireland Canada University Foundation, and Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture.

In 2022, Jane was named as a winner of the Canada-UK Foundation and Eccles Centre Canadian Fellowship at the British Library, and also was awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant for her research project, “Mothers in the Time of Cholera.”

Her research interests are in representations of Irish gender and sexuality in 18th and 19th century North America, post-Celtic Tiger migration to Canada and its historical parallels, the intersection of gender, violence, and imperialism for the Irish abroad, and histories of Irish women in Québec.

Gabrielle Machnik-Kekesi

Research Associate

Gabrielle Kathleen Machnik-Kekesi (she/elle/sí) is a Hardiman Research Scholar at the University of Galway (2021-2025) and is in her second year of PhD studies under the supervision of Dr Nessa Cronin.  She holds an Individualized Program master’s degree from Concordia University (Gender Studies and Modern Irish History), which was funded by both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Fonds de recherche du Québec en Société et Culture, and a master’s in Information Studies from McGill University (Archival Studies focus), which was supported by the Margery Trenholme Fellowship. 

Gabrielle has work experience in editing, conference planning, and grant writing.  She previously worked as managing editor for the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies and is currently a Research Associate at the Emerging Risks Information Center (Concordia University).  Her research interests include women’s history, Irish Studies, food, and cultural heritage.

Giselle Gonzalez-Garcia

Research Assistant

Giselle Gonzalez Garcia obtained her BA in History at the University of Havana (2016) and her MA in History at Concordia University in 2020. She is currently a second year PhD student at Concordia University’s School of Irish Studies. She is a member of the Society for Irish Latin American Studies and of the Canadian Association of Irish Studies. Her main subject of scholarly interest is Irish migration to Cuba.

She is the author of: “Irish presence in Guanabacoa during the 19^th century” (2019), and “Dying in Havana: Microhistory of the Irish Immigrants Buried in the General Cemetery, 1859-1862” (2019). Her MA thesis entitled “Caught between Empires: Pre-Famine Irish Immigrants in Santiago de Cuba, 1665-1847” won The Edward Eastman McCullough M.A. History Award.

Sadie Gilker

Research Assistant

Sadie Gilker is an MA graduate from the Individualized Program at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Their interdisciplinary thesis, entitled “Belfast’s Sites of Conflict and Structural Violence: An Exploration of the Transformation of Public Spaces through Theatre and Performance,” deals with performances of violence in Belfast’s public spaces, blending urban planning, performance studies and history to complete this analysis.

In 2020 they worked as a Research Assistant on the Gender, Migration and Madness project. Additionally, Sadie worked for the Institute for Urban Futures as the Assistant Programming Coordinator and Communications. In 2021, they published the article “Standing on Trial: Convictions, the Crumlin Road Courthouse and the Role of Urban Development in Historical Sites of Violence” in Dealing with the Legacy of Conflict in Northern Ireland through engagement and Dialogue, a Journal by Glencree with the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway and Ulster University.

Sadie’s research interests include performances of identity, memory, dark tourism, site-specific theatre, and peace and conflict studies.