Staff profile

I am the Sepulchrine Fellow in the History of Catholicism, a historian of early modern religious and intellectual culture, with a particular research interest in Catholic religious and their interactions with the Enlightenment and French Revolution.

I undertook undergraduate studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, before going on to study for a doctorate at Maynooth University, completing a thesis entitled 'Clergy and Laity in the Catholic Renewal of Dublin c. 1750-1830'.

From 2015-17 I was a member of the AHRC-funded Monks in Motion Project, based at Durham University. The project explored the experiences of the English Benedictine monks in exile, c. 1553-1800 (https://www.dur.ac.uk/mim/). From 2017-19 I was employed on a project exploring the history of Goldenbridge, a large centre of institutional and educational care in Dublin founded in the mid-nineteenth century. The project was undertaken in conjunction with the Sisters of Mercy and University College Dublin. I am currently completing a monograph on the subject, entitled 'Goldenbridge, 1855-1910: a history of Catholic institutional care'.

Chapter in book

• Enlightenment and Revolution. In British and Irish Religious Orders in Europe, 1560–1800: Conventuals, Mendicants and Monastics in Motion (245-265). Durham University IMEMS Press
• Begadon, C. (2017). Devotion and the Promotion of Public Morality: Confraternities and Sodalities in Early Modern Ireland. In D. Bullen Presciutti (Ed.), Space, Place and Motion: Locating Confraternities in the Late Medieval and Early Modern City (106-124). Leiden: Brill 2016. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004339521_007
• Begadon, C. (2014). ‘The 2nd Duke of Leinster and the Establishment of St Patrick's College, Maynooth’. In P. Cosgrave, T. Dooley, & K. Mullaney-Dignam (Eds.), Aspects of Aristocratic Life: Essays on the Fitzgeralds and Carton House. UCD Press
• Begadon, C. (2012). ‘Confraternities and the Renewal of Catholic Dublin, c.1750-c.1830’. In C. Lennon (Ed.), Confraternities and Sodalities in Ireland: Charity, Devotion and Sociability. Columba Press
• Begadon, C. (2011). ‘Catholic Devotional Literature in Dublin, 1800-1830’. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The Oxford History of the Irish Book: the Irish Book in English. Oxford University Press
• Begadon, C. (2011). ‘Catholic Religious Publishing in Ireland in the Nineteenth Century’. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The Oxford History of the Irish Book: the Irish Book in English. Oxford University Press
• Begadon, C. (2011). ‘The Renewal of Catholic Religious Culture in Eighteenth-Century Dublin’. In J. Bergin, E. Magennis, L. Ní Mhungaile, & P. Walsh (Eds.), New Perspectives on the Penal Laws. Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society

Edited book

• Begadon, C., & Kelly, J. E. (Eds.). (2021). British and Irish Religious Orders in Europe, 1560–1800: Conventuals, Mendicants and Monastics in Motion. Durham University IMEMS Press

Journal Article

• Begadon, C. (2018). Responses to revolution: The experiences of the English Benedictine monks in the French Revolution, 1789–93. British Catholic History, 34(1), 106-128. https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2018.4
• Begadon, C. (2018). An Enlightened Opportunist? Richard Marsh OSB (1762-1843). Erbe und Auftrag (Beuron), 94,
• Begadon, C. (2018). ‘New Perspectives on the ‘Devotional Revolution’. Evidence from the Irish College, Paris’
• Begadon, C. (2017). ‘A Prosopography of Professors at the Irish College, Paris, c. 1800-1939’