Diarmaid Ferriter (born February 1972)^[2] is an Irish historian, broadcaster, and university professor.^[3] He has written thirteen books on the subject of Irish history, and co-authored another. Ferriter attended St. Benildus College in Kilmacud in Dublin and University College Dublin.

Career

Since 2008, Ferriter is Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin.^[4] He was formerly a senior lecturer in history at St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin City University, and he was Burns Scholar at Boston College from 2008 to 2009. From 2003 to 2009, Ferriter hosted What If, a Sunday morning radio programme on RTÉ 1 and presented RTE's The History Show from 2011-2012. He continues to cover a range of Irish historical matters on RTE and the BBC.^[5] His 2007 biography of Éamon de Valera, Judging Dev, won in three categories of the 2008 Irish Book Awards.^[4]

Beyond academia, Ferriter has developed a public profile in media and politics as an advocate of public history and the greater availability of archival material. He was appointed a member of the Expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations by the Taoiseach in 2011. He has also served on the Board of the National Library of Ireland and as a member of the Irish Archives Advisory Council. He worked on multiple television projects, presenting a three-part television series, The Limits of Liberty, and later co-writing the 2018 documentary Keepers of the Flame.^[6] In 2013, he publicly supported the political campaign Democracy Matters, which opposed proposals to abolish the Irish Senate. He was also centrally involved in the campaign to retain history as a core subject on the Irish Junior Certificate curriculum. In 2014, he began writing as a weekly columnist for The Irish Times.

In March 2019, Ferriter was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Ireland's highest academic honour, for being "the most consistently innovative interpreter of the modern Irish historical experience".^[7]