Hugh Kearney

Hugh Francis Kearney (22 January 1924 – 1 October 2017) was a British historian, and Amundson Professor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh. He was the author of several articles on early modern economic history, a biography of the 1st Earl of Strafford, and the acclaimed book British Isles: A History of Four Nations, which advocated a multi-national "Britannic" approach, rather than an Anglo-centric approach, to their history, historiography and sociology.

Career Born in Liverpool, Kearney studied history at Peterhouse, Cambridge in the 1940s. He met his wife while teaching at University College Dublin where she was an undergraduate. Kearney became, in 1962, one of the first academics (a lecturer of history) at the still-under-construction "plate glass university", University of Sussex, where he taught in a temporary Nissen hut before the arts faculty buildings were completed. Kearney went on to teach courses on contemporary Britain; poetry, science and religion in seventeenth century England; religion and literature in the age of Pascal, and the politics and literature of Yeats and Joyce. In 1970, Kearney left Sussex to become Richard Pares Professor of history at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1975 moved on to the University of Pittsburgh, where he was Amundson Professor of British History until 1999. It was printed by Cambridge University Press as a general reader book with plate sections in hardback and paperback, and the Canto edition of 1995, which had an extended bibliography, was reprinted twice. A second edition was published by Cambridge in 2006, which included a new chapter on the nineties and post-devolution Britain.

Ireland: Contested Ideas of Nationalism and History In 2007, Kearney cast his "Britannic" perspective on Ireland in a collection of essays published by the New York University Press in the USA, and by Cork University Press in Ireland. According to the NYUP, "Kearney contends that Ireland represents a striking example of the power of nationalism" and offers "his revisionist 'four nations' approach to Irish history."

Personal life Kearney's daughter is Martha Kearney, a former presenter of Radio 4's The World at One and Today programmes. Kearney's son is Hugh Kearney, a high school history teacher. His other son Peter lives in sheltered housing in Bury St Edmunds.

In the media In 2006, Kearney reminisced with his daughter about life during the early development of Sussex University, in a BBC Radio 4 series charting the post-war history of higher education.

Publications

Strafford in Ireland: a Study in Absolutism: Cambridge University Press, 1959, 2nd edition 1989 Origins of the Scientific Revolution: Longmans, 1967 Science and Change 1500–1700: Weidenfeld, 1971 Scholars and Gentlemen: Universities and Society in pre-industrial Britain: Faber, Cornell University Press, 1970 The British Isles: A History of Four Nations: Cambridge University Press, 1989, 2nd edition 2006 Ireland: Contested Ideas of Nationalism and History: New York University Press, Cork University Press, 2007