Recent PhD Graduate Students

Dr Tara McConnell

Food Historian

Dr Tara McConnell has been described as “the leading scholar of eighteenth-century Irish wine drinking.” She is a food historian with a particular interest in drinking studies and material culture who has written and lectured extensively on these topics. Her monograph,“Honest Claret”: The Social Meaning of Georgian Ireland’s Favourite Wine (https://www.peterlang.com/document/1284932), sets the iconic status of claret, the red wine of Bordeaux, in eighteenth-century Ireland in historical context and is an important addition to the historiography of Irish gastronomy. Tara holds a BA from University College Cork and an M.Sc. from the Dublin Institute of Technology. The renowned food historian, Dr. Maírtín Mac Con Iomaire, acted as her PhD supervisor at Technical University Dublin and she was awarded a PhD by the university in 2021 She is a founding member of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium (2012-present). Currently working as an Independent Scholar, Dr. McConnell enjoys contributing essays, book chapters, and articles to scholarly journals and blogs. Her research into the gastronomic world of Jonathan Swift appears in the seminal publication, Irish Food History: A Companion https://arrow.tudublin.ie/irishfoodhist/1/