Ciara Ní Bhroin
Contact
- Telephone
- 353 1 805 7773
- Email
- Ciara.nibhroin@mie.ie
- Location
- St Mary's, Room 244
Rannog/Section
English Department
Qualifications
M.S.Ed, MA in English (Children’s Literature)
Teaching
English Literature - Second Year, Third Year, Postgraduate 1 and 2
Research / Professional Interests
Irish children’s literature history, ideology in Irish children’s literature and the representation of the past in Irish children’s fiction.
Publications
(2003)‘Close-Up: Living Irish Authors – Elizabeth O’Hara’ in Inis, No 7, Winter, 2003;
(2004). ‘Forging National Identity: The Adventure Stories of Eilís Dillon’ in Studies in Children’s Literature 1500-2000.(Celia Keenan and Mary Shine Thompson eds) Four Courts Press, 2004;
(2005)‘Cynical or Compassionate? The Young Adult Novels of Robert Cormier’ in The Journal of Children’s Literature Studies, Vol 1, Issue 2, July 2005;
(2005)‘Championing Irish Children’s Literature: A Postcolonial Analysis of Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne’ in Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, Vol 43, No 2, 2005;
(2007) ‘A Divided Union; Reformation and Reconciliation in Maria Edgeworth’s Orlandino’ in Valerie Coghlan and Celia Keenan eds Divided Worlds; Political and Social Conflict in Children’s Literature. Four Courts Press, 2007.
(2007) ‘Elizabeth O’Hara’ in Irish Children’s Writers and Illustrators 1996-2006; A Selection of Essays. (Valerie Coghlan and Siobhán eds) CICE/CBI Publications, 2007. (2008,in press)
Biography
Ciara lectures in English literature in Coláiste Mhuire, MIE and coordinates a creative writing elective course – Teacher as Writer, Fiction. She is also coordinator of the MIE Poetry Ireland Writer in Residence Programme.
Ciara’s background is in primary school teaching. She specialized in the teaching of literacy and in educational disadvantage in New York State University College at Oneonta, where she conducted research on the writing process of kindergarteners. Part of her course involved work placements in a diagnostic and remedial clinic, a head-start preschool centre and a detention centre for young offenders.
After a number of years teaching in Mary Help of Christians G.N.S., Ciara went on to study children’s literature in St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, where she was awarded a research scholarship to conduct a postcolonial analysis of Irish children’s literature.
Her areas of special interest are the history of Irish children’s literature, ideology in Irish children’s literature and the representation of the past in Irish children’s fiction. She has published on the work of Maria Edgeworth, Lady Gregory, Standish O’Grady, Eilís Dillon, Elizabeth O’Hara and on the young adult novels of Robert Cormier.
Ciara serves on the board of IBBY Ireland (the Irish branch of the International Board on Books for Young People) and is vice-president of the ISSCL (the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature). She is a member of CBI (Children’s Books Ireland) and Poetry Ireland. Ciara is a regular reviewer for Inis and has reviewed for The Irish Literary Supplement and Bookbird.
Awards
MS Ed scholarship to New York State University, Oneonta awarded by St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra (1986-87)
MA research scholarship awarded by St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra (2001-2002)