John Gallagher
@earlymodernjohn.bsky.social
Irishman in Yorkshire. Historian of language, education, migration at the University of Leeds. Co-editor of the Historical Journal; from 2026, editor of Renaissance Studies. Occasional BBC radio presenter. Currently learning Amharic. Dad!
Pinned
New editor and associate editor, Renaissance Studies – Society for Renaissance Studies
www.rensoc.org.uk
Some news: in 2026 I'll take over as Editor of Renaissance Studies. It's a journal that means a great deal to me and which occupies a uniquely important position in the interdisciplinary study of the early modern world. With our new Associate Editor, Dr Elizabeth Petcu, I can't wait to get started!
Reposted by John Gallagher
Out now! Open access in current issue of Renaissance Quarterly thanks to @ucdlibrary.bsky.social my thanks to everyone who helped me with this - but a special mention of the late Bríd McGrath for her wisdom, generosity and dedication to all the things that matter.
January 2, 2026 at 1:26 PM
Out now! Open access in current issue of Renaissance Quarterly thanks to @ucdlibrary.bsky.social my thanks to everyone who helped me with this - but a special mention of the late Bríd McGrath for her wisdom, generosity and dedication to all the things that matter.
AI slop is getting worse. Asked an LLM to sing a Christmas song for me and after one verse about Christmas it descended into increasingly threatening demands for figgy pudding
December 22, 2025 at 6:34 PM
AI slop is getting worse. Asked an LLM to sing a Christmas song for me and after one verse about Christmas it descended into increasingly threatening demands for figgy pudding
Belatedly caught up with @cjfaraday.bsky.social's great Radio 3 documentary on music in the glorious biographical portrait of Sir Henry Unton. It's my favourite early modern painting and Christina and guests bring it wonderfully to life. Ideal pre-Christmas listening! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Sir Henry Unton's Music
Christina Faraday looks at possibly the first image of amateur music playing in England.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 19, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Belatedly caught up with @cjfaraday.bsky.social's great Radio 3 documentary on music in the glorious biographical portrait of Sir Henry Unton. It's my favourite early modern painting and Christina and guests bring it wonderfully to life. Ideal pre-Christmas listening! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
Reposted by John Gallagher
I’m so excited to finally say I’ll soon be joining Manchester Jewish Museum as their Curator (not that I’ve been keeping it secret well!)!! This is a dream role, sparked after using the museum’s collection for research years ago. I hope to serve Manchester’s rich and diverse Jewish history well!
December 16, 2025 at 5:52 PM
I’m so excited to finally say I’ll soon be joining Manchester Jewish Museum as their Curator (not that I’ve been keeping it secret well!)!! This is a dream role, sparked after using the museum’s collection for research years ago. I hope to serve Manchester’s rich and diverse Jewish history well!
Shout out to what I think might be the single worst book title in early modern English print.
December 17, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Shout out to what I think might be the single worst book title in early modern English print.
Anocht ag 7.30i.n., beo ar TG4 agus ar líne! Tonight at 7.30pm, live on TG4 and online!
One of this year's great thrills was getting to film a documentary on Gallaghers and the Gallagher surname (with a dollop of my own family history too) for TG4. Our episode of Sloinne is being broadcast again on Wednesday 17 December at 7.30pm (or streaming here): www.tg4.ie/en/player/on...
Sloinne | Ó Gallachóir | Player | Irish Television Channel, Súil Eile
New series of Sloinne in which a person goes in search of the history of their surname in each episode. We travel all over the country learning about famous and historical figures as well as the clans...
www.tg4.ie
December 17, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Anocht ag 7.30i.n., beo ar TG4 agus ar líne! Tonight at 7.30pm, live on TG4 and online!
Reposted by John Gallagher
The MPs on the Education Committee enquire in the UK would do well to read this report, it would be 'efficient' as it saves them reinventing the wheel. They can read the next two years of UKHE already neatly mapped out here. AND THEN PUT A STOP TO IT.
'The report said the inquiry had heard “from a substantial cohort of academic staff and students outlining their experience that centralised decision-making, driven by commercial priorities, has had a detrimental effect on academic influence within universities”.' 2/3
December 15, 2025 at 4:35 PM
The MPs on the Education Committee enquire in the UK would do well to read this report, it would be 'efficient' as it saves them reinventing the wheel. They can read the next two years of UKHE already neatly mapped out here. AND THEN PUT A STOP TO IT.
Reposted by John Gallagher
I've been worried for years that UK Higher Education is on the path of Australia (not the US), just a year or two behind. But if we could get a committee like this to outline the harm caused by centralisation, reliance on external consultants, and consequent failures of prioritisation I'm all in.
'All states and territories in Australia should review the legislation underpinning universities “to ensure the primacy of public research and education”, a Senate committee has said.'
Very relevant to UK. 1/3
Very relevant to UK. 1/3
Australian universities ‘must put research and education first’.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-aust...
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-aust...
December 15, 2025 at 4:34 PM
I've been worried for years that UK Higher Education is on the path of Australia (not the US), just a year or two behind. But if we could get a committee like this to outline the harm caused by centralisation, reliance on external consultants, and consequent failures of prioritisation I'm all in.
Probably not ideal to flag this just as everyone shuts down for Christmas but if anyone would be interested in a conversation or a piece of writing about educational institutions in crisis, teaching on the margins, selling education, authority and autodidacticism etc, you know where to find me.
So, one day soon an article by me is coming out in the English Historical Review about the fragmentation of England's educational systems from the 1650s on and the new forms of teaching & learning that emerged, and it's only just struck me that this is, you know, Relevant To Our Current Situation.
December 17, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Probably not ideal to flag this just as everyone shuts down for Christmas but if anyone would be interested in a conversation or a piece of writing about educational institutions in crisis, teaching on the margins, selling education, authority and autodidacticism etc, you know where to find me.
So, one day soon an article by me is coming out in the English Historical Review about the fragmentation of England's educational systems from the 1650s on and the new forms of teaching & learning that emerged, and it's only just struck me that this is, you know, Relevant To Our Current Situation.
December 17, 2025 at 8:22 AM
So, one day soon an article by me is coming out in the English Historical Review about the fragmentation of England's educational systems from the 1650s on and the new forms of teaching & learning that emerged, and it's only just struck me that this is, you know, Relevant To Our Current Situation.
People make fun of him for Lady In Red but forget that Chris de Burgh wrote what is hands down the single greatest UFO nativity Christmas anthem of all time. And what the hell have you ever done?
December 17, 2025 at 8:13 AM
People make fun of him for Lady In Red but forget that Chris de Burgh wrote what is hands down the single greatest UFO nativity Christmas anthem of all time. And what the hell have you ever done?
One of this year's great thrills was getting to film a documentary on Gallaghers and the Gallagher surname (with a dollop of my own family history too) for TG4. Our episode of Sloinne is being broadcast again on Wednesday 17 December at 7.30pm (or streaming here): www.tg4.ie/en/player/on...
Sloinne | Ó Gallachóir | Player | Irish Television Channel, Súil Eile
New series of Sloinne in which a person goes in search of the history of their surname in each episode. We travel all over the country learning about famous and historical figures as well as the clans...
www.tg4.ie
December 16, 2025 at 12:12 PM
One of this year's great thrills was getting to film a documentary on Gallaghers and the Gallagher surname (with a dollop of my own family history too) for TG4. Our episode of Sloinne is being broadcast again on Wednesday 17 December at 7.30pm (or streaming here): www.tg4.ie/en/player/on...
I would say as a rough estimate that writing the last 3% of this chapter has taken about 30% of the time necessary to write the whole thing. My returns, they're diminishing!
December 16, 2025 at 11:52 AM
I would say as a rough estimate that writing the last 3% of this chapter has taken about 30% of the time necessary to write the whole thing. My returns, they're diminishing!
Reposted by John Gallagher
Who's entering our Biennial Book Prize 2026, to celebrate the best monographs in Renaissance studies published in 2024 and 2025? Send your scintillating scholarship to the Chair of the Book Prize Committee, @racheljwillie.bsky.social, by 31st January 2026.
www.rensoc.org.uk/funding-priz...
www.rensoc.org.uk/funding-priz...
December 13, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Who's entering our Biennial Book Prize 2026, to celebrate the best monographs in Renaissance studies published in 2024 and 2025? Send your scintillating scholarship to the Chair of the Book Prize Committee, @racheljwillie.bsky.social, by 31st January 2026.
www.rensoc.org.uk/funding-priz...
www.rensoc.org.uk/funding-priz...
Reposted by John Gallagher
For avoidance of confusion, that’s just about all academic staff, excluding Heads of Dept and- of course - Senior Management Team.
Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252:
Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.
Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk
Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.
Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk
December 11, 2025 at 5:15 PM
For avoidance of confusion, that’s just about all academic staff, excluding Heads of Dept and- of course - Senior Management Team.
Reposted by John Gallagher
The first ever monolingual Irish dictionary has been launched www.rte.ie/news/ireland...
Groundbreaking monolingual Irish dictionary launched
A groundbreaking new monolingual dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge that provides people with a new way to understand, use and learn the Irish language, without relying on dictionaries in English or in ot...
www.rte.ie
December 10, 2025 at 8:12 AM
The first ever monolingual Irish dictionary has been launched www.rte.ie/news/ireland...
Reposted by John Gallagher
I wish a notice like this wasn't necessary.
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...
Important notice: AI-generated archival references
www.icrc.org
December 8, 2025 at 1:27 AM
I wish a notice like this wasn't necessary.
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...
Consider my original statement cheerfully modified! But still: but still!
Rupert Davies was a bit.
December 8, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Consider my original statement cheerfully modified! But still: but still!
Matthew MacFadyen is a great actor and I'll absolutely watch the new series but when are we going to get an adaptation brave enough to give us a fat George Smiley? He is definitionally not a hunk in the books and even Alec Guinness worried he was too slim to play him!
December 8, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Matthew MacFadyen is a great actor and I'll absolutely watch the new series but when are we going to get an adaptation brave enough to give us a fat George Smiley? He is definitionally not a hunk in the books and even Alec Guinness worried he was too slim to play him!
Just learnt that Semtex smells like marzipan, which goes some way to explaining the airport security consternation a few years ago when my mum sent me back to England with half a Christmas cake wrapped in tinfoil.
December 7, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Just learnt that Semtex smells like marzipan, which goes some way to explaining the airport security consternation a few years ago when my mum sent me back to England with half a Christmas cake wrapped in tinfoil.
Reposted by John Gallagher
Universities: investing millions so students ”develop literacy in the language of AI”
Also universities: defunding the humanities so students are illiterate in ordinary languages
Also universities: defunding the humanities so students are illiterate in ordinary languages
December 6, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Universities: investing millions so students ”develop literacy in the language of AI”
Also universities: defunding the humanities so students are illiterate in ordinary languages
Also universities: defunding the humanities so students are illiterate in ordinary languages
Reposted by John Gallagher
Attention creative medievalists! Eleanor Barraclough & I are co-editing a special issue of Public Humanities entitled CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW! See the cfp for details: essays of 2,000-3,000 words due 1 May 2026. (Amazing artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social). 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
December 5, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Attention creative medievalists! Eleanor Barraclough & I are co-editing a special issue of Public Humanities entitled CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW! See the cfp for details: essays of 2,000-3,000 words due 1 May 2026. (Amazing artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social). 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
I realised recently that Google Scholar fails to capture quite a few citations of my work. But today I spotted that it has recently decided that I'm the late imperial historian John Gallagher so at least I'm picking up a solid few of his.
Historians on hiring, tenure, and promotion committees should be cautious about relying on Google Scholar, and we need to fight against others using it to assess us. I just noticed three citations to my articles in an American Historical Review article by Jo Guldi, and none show up in my profile.
December 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM
I realised recently that Google Scholar fails to capture quite a few citations of my work. But today I spotted that it has recently decided that I'm the late imperial historian John Gallagher so at least I'm picking up a solid few of his.
Reposted by John Gallagher
If you are a historian with policy-facing interests who has recently submitted their PhD (or will do so imminently), this fantastic new London-based postdoc fellowship in Applied History could be for you. www.history.ac.uk/fellowships/...
Robert Mcintosh Applied History & Policy Fellowship
Robert Mcintosh Applied History & Policy Fellowship
www.history.ac.uk
December 4, 2025 at 7:44 AM
If you are a historian with policy-facing interests who has recently submitted their PhD (or will do so imminently), this fantastic new London-based postdoc fellowship in Applied History could be for you. www.history.ac.uk/fellowships/...
Now on the third day of painstaking archival reconstruction which if I'm lucky will yield maybe two paragraphs of the book. At least it's keeping my interest, even if I'll only have two or three sentences to cover this French bigamist, thief, and forger in 1560s London.
December 4, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Now on the third day of painstaking archival reconstruction which if I'm lucky will yield maybe two paragraphs of the book. At least it's keeping my interest, even if I'll only have two or three sentences to cover this French bigamist, thief, and forger in 1560s London.