Rate My Professor Paul Townend

Paul Townend, Professor of Modern and Early British and Irish History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), has been a faculty member in the History Department since 2001. He previously taught briefly at Villanova University. Townend earned his B.A. in History from Colgate University, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. in History with distinction from the University of Chicago in 1999, studying under historians Emmet Larkin and Steve Pincus. His doctoral dissertation examined the 1838 temperance movement inaugurated by Theobald Mathew in Cork, Ireland. Throughout his career at UNCW, he has excelled in teaching, research, and administration, serving as Chair of the History Department from 2009 to 2016, Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Undergraduate Studies from 2016 to 2021, and currently as Associate Dean for Student Success and Policy in the College of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts (CHSSA). He has led study abroad experiences for UNCW students in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.

Townend's research specializes in modern Irish history from around 1800, exploring the development of Irish nationalisms, relationships between leaders, followers, movements, and ideologies in identity formation, and Ireland's interactions within the British imperial context. His seminal work, Father Mathew, Temperance and Irish Identity (Irish Academic Press, 2002), which originated from his dissertation, won the American Conference on Irish Studies James Donnelly Award for the best book in the social sciences. Subsequent publications include The Road to Home Rule: Anti-Imperialism and the Irish National Movement (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016) and the edited volume Ireland in an Imperial World: Citizenship, Opportunism and Subversion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has contributed articles and essays to prestigious journals such as Past & Present, Catholic Historical Review, and Éire-Ireland. Ongoing projects encompass studies of reading rooms in Irish national movements from 1838 to 1900, Irish responses to the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879-1881, and the place of Irish temperance in the Atlantic World. Recognized as an award-winning scholar, educator, and administrator, Townend's contributions have significantly impacted the fields of British and Irish history.