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I am a historian of twentieth century Britain and Ireland, specialising on the Northern Ireland conflict (commonly, and euphemistically, known as ‘the Troubles’). I joined MMU in August 2018 after holding a variety of research and teaching posts at Queen’s University Belfast, University College Dublin, King’s College London and the University of Chichester.
Conflict in Modern Ireland, 1798-1998 (second year)
The Northern Ireland 'Troubles' (second year)
War, Welfare and Depression: Social Change in Britain 1929-51 (third year)
Research Methods I
Terrorism & Political Violence
My first book, No Solution: the Labour government and the Northern Ireland conflict 1974-79 (Manchester University Press, 2016), analysed constitutional, security and economic policies and debates between civil servants, senior military officers, policemen and politicians in Great Britain and both parts of Ireland. It explained why acceptable political institutions could not be firmly established in the first decade of the conflict.
As a Research Fellow on the Leverhulme Trust-funded project ‘The Politics of Consumer Credit in the United Kingdom, 1938-92’, I explored how the UK came to have the most diverse consumer credit market in Europe with Professor Sean O’Connell and Dr Paul Corthorn (QUB). A co-authored book with the same title as the project was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. It depicts how the philosophies of major political parties contributed to the economic and social impact of the growing use of credit in British society.
My current project is titled ‘The use of other conflicts in in Northern Ireland’s “Troubles”: memory, analogy and appropriation’. It was supported by a grant from the Irish Research Council and will result in a series of articles covering aspects of memory and political culture in Northern Ireland. These include the impact of memories of decolonisation, the appropriation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Northern Irish political discourse and contemporary comparisons with South Africa.
S. Aveyard, P. Corthorn, S. O'Connell (2018). The Politics of Consumer Credit in the UK, 1938-1992. Oxford University Press.
S. Aveyard (2016). No Solution The Labour Government and the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1974-79. Manchester University Press.
SC. Aveyard (2014). ‘We couldn't do a Prague’: British government responses to loyalist strikes in Northern Ireland 1974–77. Irish Historical Studies. 39(153), pp.91-111.
SC. Aveyard (2012). ‘The “English Disease” is to Look for a “Solution of the Irish Problem”’: British Constitutional Policy in Northern Ireland after Sunningdale 1974–1976. Contemporary British History. 26(4), pp.529-549.
SC. Aveyard (2018). ‘Soup kitchens disguised as factories’? Employment policy and the irrelevance of neoliberalism in northern Ireland. E. Eklund, J. Scott, M. Oppenheimer. In: The State of Welfare: Comparative Studies of the Welfare State at the End of the Long Boom, 1965-1980. Peter Lang Limited, International Academic Publishers, pp.39-60.
S. Aveyard, S. McDaid (2017). Sunningdale and the limits of 'rejectionist' unionism. C. McGrattan, D. McCann. In: Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers' Council strike and the struggle for democracy in Northern Ireland. Manchester University Press, pp.100-113.
SC. Aveyard (2015). The Labour government and police primacy in Northern Ireland, 1974-79. L. Marley. In: The British Labour Party and Twentieth-Century Ireland: The Cause of Ireland, the Cause of Labour. Manchester University Press, pp.164-181.
Two-Year Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship, Irish Research Council (2015)
Visiting Research Fellow, School of History & Anthropology, Queen’s University Belfast, 2015-16
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society