The second report from our 2023 Bursary Prize winners comes from David Glover (University of Liverpool). David used his BAIS bursary to conduct archival research for his PhD project on the prominent republican figure and journalist Seán Cronin:

The bursary prize has been invaluable for my research.  I have utilised the prize for many uses. But one notable use was to be able to locate and retrieve a large portion of the original documents which will form the basis for my research.  These were located in Washington DC.

I was able to arrange to for those documents to be transported to Dublin.  I travelled to Dublin to take possession of those documents. These included a large collection of handwritten reporters’ notebooks which had been completed by Seán Cronin during the early 1970s, whilst he was reporting for the Irish Times as a New York correspondent.  In October I flew to Dublin for 6 days during which time I was able to receive the documents. Whilst I was there, I was able to have conversations in person with Reva Rubenstein, the wife of Seán Cronin; Carmel Murphy, friend of Seán Cronin; Charlie Murphy (former comrade of Seán Cronin). I also met Dr Brian Hanley (of Trinity College) and had conversations with him regarding my thesis ideas and avenues of research. Following on from my conversations with Dr Hanley I conducted research at The Public Records Office and The National Library of Ireland. 

I cannot thank BAIS enough for the opportunity the bursary has made possible.

David Glover is a PhD student at the University of Liverpool Institute of Irish Studies. His project undertakes an intellectual biography of Cronin’s pursuit of the promotion of intellectual republicanism and the furtherance of social left-wing thought within that ideology, to evaluate the proposition that Cronin was a focal point at the convergence of republicanism with republican activism, politics, journalism, radical arts, transnational republican networks and social and labour rights.

*Image of Seán Cronin is courtesy of An Phoblacht.