Dr Connal Parr

Connal's doctoral thesis on Ulster Protestant working class politics and culture since 1960 viewed political developments and political and social history through the prism of dramatists and writers from this background. This was the basis of his first book Inventing the Myth: Political Passions and the Ulster Protestant Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2017). The book was shortlisted for the Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize (for titles 2015-17) and the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize for distinguished first books. It was also the basis of a three-month series funded by the International Fund for Ireland entitled 'Across the Lines', which took place in two border counties of Ireland in the autumn of 2019. It engaged civilians from border counties and discussed Ulster Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist identity.

His present research builds on his expertise in Northern Ireland to comparatively explore how states such as South Africa, Spain, Chile and others deal with a divided and violent past. It illustrates how the arts and culture resonate with a transitional justice element, playing an active role in conflict transformation and peace-building across the world. His second book, on the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, was published by Oxford University Press in 2025, and was launched in the South African Embassy in Dublin.

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Conclusion, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Friends and Enemies: The Left, the North, and Secret Operations, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Introduction, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Ministerial Coda, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• New Worlds: Literature as Resistance and the Cultural Boycott, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Solidarity and Pressure: The Story of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025
• Springboks and the Seventies, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• The Birth of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement: Building a Broad Front, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• The Dunnes Stores Strike, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Transitions and Peace Processes, Parr, C. 23 Oct 2025, Solidarity and Pressure, Oxford, Oxford University Press

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Paving the Path to Peace-Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Process, 1989-1998, Parr, C. (Principal Investigator), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Reconciliation Fund, 01/09/22 - 30/06/23, £22,131.00

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Membership of network: Higher Education Academy (External organisation) 2017

• Laura Littlefair Recontextualising the Deindustrialised Railway Town: Communities, Memory, Gender, and Identity in Shildon, 1984-2004 Start Date: 29/04/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
• Haitham Mohammad Mousa Shtayat Voices of Conflict and Resistance: Women, Identity, and Social Marginalization in Northern Irish Crime Fiction Start Date: 01/03/2026
• Laura Littlefair Recontextualising the Deindustrialised Railway Town: Communities, Memory, Gender, and Identity in Shildon, 1984-2017 Start Date: 29/04/2025

• Politics PhD September 01 2013
• History MA September 15 2010
• History BA (Hons) July 05 2007