Dr Alison Cathcart

Associate Professor in Early Modern Scot

History A64 Pathfoot Division of History and Politics University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA

Contact details

Email a.m.cathcart@stir.ac.uk
Telephone+44 (0)1786 467962

ORCID 0000-0003-1291-6561

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About me

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.

Research

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.

Outputs

Article

The Maritime Dimension to Plantation in Ulster, ca. 1550-ca. 1600

Cathcart A (2019) The Maritime Dimension to Plantation in Ulster, ca. 1550-ca. 1600. Journal of the North Atlantic, 12 (SP1), pp. 95-111. https://doi.org/10.3721/037.012.sp1204

Article

Early evidence of the impact of preindustrial fishing on fish stocks from the mid-west and southeast coastal fisheries of Scotland in the 19th century

Jones P, Cathcart A & Speirs DC (2016) Early evidence of the impact of preindustrial fishing on fish stocks from the mid-west and southeast coastal fisheries of Scotland in the 19th century. ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil, 73 (5), pp. 1404-1414. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsv189

Book Chapter

A Spent Force? The Clan Donald in the aftermath of 1493

Cathcart A (2014) A Spent Force? The Clan Donald in the aftermath of 1493. In: Oram RD (ed.) The Lordship of the Isles. The Northern World, 68. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, pp. 254-270. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004280359_013

Book Chapter

The view from Scotland: the Scottish context to the Flight of the Earls

Cathcart A (2010) The view from Scotland: the Scottish context to the Flight of the Earls. In: The flight of the Earls, 1607 - 2007: a quarto-centenary perspective. Derry: Guildhall, pp. 132-139.

Book Chapter

Scots and Ulster: the late medieval context

Cathcart A (2009) Scots and Ulster: the late medieval context. In: Scotland and the Ulster plantations Explorations in the British settlements of Stuart Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp. 62-83. https://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/archives/scotland-and-the-ulster-plantations/

Book Chapter

'Inressyng of kyndnes, and renewing off thair blud': the family, kinship and clan policy in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Gaeldom

Cathcart A (2008) 'Inressyng of kyndnes, and renewing off thair blud': the family, kinship and clan policy in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Gaeldom. In: Ewan E & Nugent J (eds.) Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World. Abingdon: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 127-138. https://www.routledge.com/Finding-the-Family-in-Medieval-and-Early-Modern-Scotland-1st-Edition/Ewan-Nugent/p/book/9780754660491

Teaching

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.

Dr Alison Cathcart

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About me

Research themes