Biography:
Before coming to Campion Hall, Dr Mac Cuarta served in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Jesuit Archives, Rome) as director, and as academic director (2010-2021). There he oversaw the preparation of archival and online resources for Jesuit history, chiefly for the restored Society of Jesus (post 1814).
Early modern Ireland has been his research area, with interests in the Catholic community (including links with England, Scotland, and Rome), and in colonial society in the period before the breakdown of 1641.
He gained his PhD from Trinity College Dublin (2004) and was awarded the DLitt degree by the National University of Ireland (2022). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Research Area(s):
History of Christianity
More Specific Research Interests:
History of Irish Christianity, Jesuit History
Current Projects:
A biography of Francis Slingsby (1611-1642), Catholic convert
Recent Publications:
Marian Lyons and Brian Mac Cuarta (eds), The Jesuit mission in early modern Ireland, 1560-1760 (Dublin, 2022)
(ed.), Henry Piers’ Continental Travels, 1595-1598 (Cambridge, 2018)
Catholic revival in the north of Ireland 1603-41 (Dublin, 2007)
(ed.), Ulster 1641: aspects of the Rising (Belfast, 1993; 3rd ed. 2020)
'Religious violence against settlers in south Ulster, 1641-2’, in David Edwards et al (eds), Age of atrocity (Dublin, 2007), pp 154-75
‘‘Sword’ and ‘word’ in the 1610s: Matthew De Renzy and Irish reform’, in Brian Mac Cuarta (ed.), Reshaping Ireland 1550-1700 (Dublin, 2011), pp 101-30
‘The Catholic Church in Ulster under the plantation, 1609-42’, in Eamonn Ó Ciardha and Micheál Ó Siochrú (eds), The plantation of Ulster: ideology and practice (Manchester, 2012), pp 119-42
(ed.), ‘Irish government lists of Catholic personnel, c.1613’, Archivium Hibernicum, 68 (2015), 63-102
‘Scots Catholics in Ulster, 1603-41’, in David Edwards (ed.), The Scots in early Stuart Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2016), pp 141-68
‘Select Document: Catholic ownership of tithes: a Co. Wexford widow’s dispensation, 1595’, Irish Historical Studies, 42: 162 (2018), 336-44
‘Irish soldiers in Loreto and Rome: a pilgrimage, and an employment request, c.1609’, British Catholic History, 34: 4 (Oct. 2019), 587-98
‘Jesuit conversions in Wentworth’s Ireland: the Slingsby family, County Cork’, in Mary Ann Lyons and Brian Mac Cuarta (eds), The Jesuit mission in early modern Ireland, 1560-1760 (Dublin, 2022), pp 167-92
