Subject: ‘Methodists in Ireland: Political Identities and Changing Contexts’
Lecturer: Dr Fergus O’Ferrall
Dr Fergus O’Ferrall is a native of Abbeyderg, Kenagh, Co.Longford. He attended Wesley College, Dublin and Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a Moderatorship in Modern History and Political Science, a Masters Degree in Health Services Management and a doctorate in Irish History.
Amongst his publications are Catholic Emancipation Daniel O’Connell and the Birth of Irish Democracy 1820-1830 (Gill & Macmillan, 1985) and a short biography Daniel O’Connell (Gill & Macmillan, 1981 and 1998). He edited with the County Archivist Martin Morris Longford History and Society (Geography Publications, Dublin, 2010). Together with Martin Morris and Sarah Gearty he edited Longford in the Royal Irish Academy’s Irish Historic Towns Atlas series. He has also written a comparative study of the three towns, Athlone, Mullingar and Longford, which is published in Maps and Texts Exploring the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, edited by H.B. Clarke and Sarah Gearty (Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 2013). He is a regular contributor to Teathbha, the Journal of the Longford Historical Society of which he is a Life Member. He is a member of the Committee of the Methodist Historical Society of Ireland. He has contributed articles on aspects of Irish history and health policy to a number journals including Studies An Irish Quarterly and to the online Dublin Review of Books.
Dr O’Ferrall has held the following positions: Adelaide Professor in Health Policy, Trinity College, Dublin; Director of the Adelaide Hospital Society; Director of the National Bible Society of Ireland; Chief Executive of Macra na Feirme, President of the National Youth Council of Ireland; Chairman of The Wheel, the co-ordinating body of the Irish voluntary sector. He is currently a Governor of The Irish Times newspaper. Recently he has been asked to co-chair a new initiative by the Carnegie Trust and The Wheel to stimulate a national People’s Conversation directed towards producing a New Vision of Citizenship in Ireland to be launched in 2016. He was designated Lay Leader of Conference, 2016-18, by the Methodist Church in Ireland in 2015.
