Dr. Susan Flavin

Associate Professor in History

Research Interests

My research concentrates on the history of trade, consumption and material culture in Early Modern Britain and Ireland. My work is grounded in interdisciplinary approaches to history. I am currently the Principal Investigator of a 5-year ERC Funded Project FoodCult (Food, Culture and Identity in Ireland c. 1550-1650). The project, which commenced in February 2019, brings together historians, archaeologists, computational and archaeological scientists, from across the UK and Ireland, to explore food consumption and its cultural interpretation during a complex and dynamic period of Irish history.

Select Publications
Books

• Flavin, S. Consumption and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Ireland, Saffron, Stockings and Silk (Woodbridge, 2014).
• Flavin, S. and Jones, E.T., (eds), Bristol’s Trade with Ireland and the Continent 1503-1601: the Evidence of the Exchequer Customs Accounts (Dublin, 2009).

Articles/Book Chapters

• Flavin, S. ‘Food, Drink and Society in Sixteenth-Century Ireland: Cultures of Consumption’ in Becoming & Belonging in Ireland c.1200-1600 (Cork University Press, 2018).
• Flavin, S. ‘Domestic Materiality in Ireland, 1550-1730’, in J. Ohlmeyer (ed.) The Cambridge History of Ireland, Early Modern Ireland, 1550-1730. Volume 2. (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
• Flavin, S. ‘The Decorative Arts: Change and Development in the Sixteenth Century’, in S. Smiles (ed.) West Country to World's End: The South West in the Tudor Age (London, 2013).
• Flavin, S. “Consumption and Material Culture in Sixteenth-Century Ireland”, Economic History Review, Vol. 64, Issue 4 (Nov., 2011), pp. 1073-1427.

Teaching and Supervision

My teaching concentrates on social themes in sixteenth and seventeenth-century British and Irish history, from a comparative European perspective.  I currently contribute to a Freshman survey module on ‘Ireland 1534-1815’ and I teach a List 2 module on ‘Food, Drink and Society in Early Modern Europe’. I am interested in supervising postgraduate research in the areas of consumption and material culture in early modern Britain and Ireland and in broader social and cultural themes.

Dr Flavin on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Room 3108
Department of History
Trinity College
Dublin 2.

Telephone: +353 1 896 3398
Fax: +353 1 896 3995
Email: sflavin@tcd.ie