Dr Alison Cathcart

I grew up on the edges of the Atlantic, in Derry City, but decided to look out over a different body of water while continuing with my education. I made my way, via two years in Dublin, to Aberdeen where I graduated with a BA (Hons) in History in 1996 and a PhD in History in 2001. After working for three years at the University of St Andrews I felt the average rainfall level in the east was not substantial enough so I moved back west to join the University of Strathclyde in 2005. In 2019 I was fortunate enough to be appointed to the University of Stirling where I can contemplate both water and hills.

My research has focused primarily on connections between Scotland and Ireland within a wider archipelagic context during the early modern period. I am currently finalising a monograph that explores plantation by land and sea, c.1550-c.1625, and engages with the social, political, economic, environmental, maritime and confessional factors at play. The focus is on the communities that exist at the interface of land and sea, their interaction and integration within a geographic region defined by a body of water. My interests in local communities and in maritime and environmental factors have developed and will come to the fore in my forthcoming research project that focuses on insular communities of the archipelago. In addition, I have collaborated with colleagues in fisheries and marine science to explore the sustainability of fishing in historic and contemporary contexts. This has (much to my own initial horror) stimulated a desire for greater mathematical knowledge in order to utilise regression modelling more fully within my own research.

I currently offer the a semester 5 module: Scotland's 'Highland Problem' in the sixteenth century a semester 6 module: Islands in the Sea: the maritime world of the Atlantic archipelago and a special subject: Plantations in Ulster, c.1550-1620. In addition I contribute to teaching on the semester 1 Scottish History module; and the semester 3 module Reputations. I am willing to supervise undergraduate and PGT dissertations and currently supervise a number of PhD students.