Rate My Professor Bryan McGovern

Bryan McGovern serves as Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy and Professor of History and History Education at Kennesaw State University within the Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Missouri, earned in 2003, and an M.A. in History from the University of Cincinnati. McGovern joined Kennesaw State University in 2007 following his tenure as an Assistant Professor of History at Quincy University. During his time at KSU, he acted as Program Coordinator of History Education for eight years, served as interim chair of the department, and was appointed permanent chair effective July 1, 2022. He teaches courses in Irish history, American history, and history education.

McGovern's research specializes in 19th-century Irish and Irish-American history, with a focus on Irish American nationalism. His major publications include the monograph John Mitchel: Irish Nationalist, Southern Secessionist (University of Tennessee Press, 2009) and The Fenians: Irish Rebellion in the North Atlantic World, 1858-1876, co-authored with Patrick Steward (University of Tennessee Press, 2013). Notable articles feature “Richard O'Gorman and Young Ireland on Race, Class, and Culture in Nineteenth Century Irish America” in New Hibernia Review (Summer 2022), “Andrew Jackson and the Protestant Irish of Philadelphia: Early Nineteenth Century Sectarianism” in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies (Spring 2020), “Young Ireland and Southern Nationalism” in Irish Studies South (2016), “Kerby Miller and Irish Immigration to America” in The Making of Modern Immigration: An Encyclopedia of People and Ideas (2012), and “John Mitchel: Ecumenical Nationalist in the Old South” in New Hibernia Review (Summer 2001). He recently published “How the color of St. Patrick’s Day went from Blue to Green” in The Conversation (March 2025) and has “Ultramontanism and the Fracturing of Irish America” under review with Irish Studies Review. Currently, McGovern is authoring a book on the Irish in Georgia.