Dr. Jesse Patrick Harrington
5pm, Floor Two, Arumugam Building
St. Catherine’s College, Oxford
Michaelmas 2026
This series of four public lectures re-examines the political and religious history of England and Ireland at the time of the English/Norman conquest of 1169, through the life and afterlife of St. Lorcán Ó Tuathail (Laurence O’Toole, c. 1128–1180): architect of the twelfth-century reform of the Irish Church and principal peacemaker and powerbroker of the conquest, dubbed
‘a second Thomas Becket’ by his contemporaries. Through the abundant yet little studied sources in manuscript libraries in Brussels, Dublin, Oxford, Paris, and Rouen, concerning his early life and later career as abbot of Glendalough, archbishop of Dublin, and papal legate and primate in Ireland, St. Laurence was arguably the most fully documented Irishman of his century—shedding new light on an important medieval life and the many worlds he inhabited, as diplomat, prelate, prince, warrior, and ecumenical saint.
4 November: Windows on a World
St. Laurence O’Toole at 800 and the European Year of the Normans
11 November: Ireland’s Empire
Ireland, the Papacy, and Renovatio Imperii
18 November: Prelude to Invasion
Henry II and Ireland
2 December: Negotiations and Assassinations
St. Laurence as Diplomat, Warrior, and Peacemaker
Dr. Jesse Patrick Harrington is a Research Ireland Pathway Fellow at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (2025–2029), Ireland’s statutory institute for fundamental research, and Visiting Fellow at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford (Michaelmas 2026), where he is preparing a new critical biography and edition of the medieval and early modern manuscript sources concerning St.
Laurence of Dublin. He holds his Ph.D. in History from the University of Cambridge and has held postdoctoral and visiting research posts in Cork, Dublin, Paris, Poitiers, and Rome. He is advisor to the international St. Laurence anniversary commemorations for 2025–2030, and his public historical research has been extensively quoted in French and Irish national broadcast media, by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, and in sessions of the Irish Parliament (Dáil Éireann).
The four lectures are kindly hosted by St. Catherine’s College, Oxford (5pm Wednesdays 4, 11, 18 November, and 2 December) and form the second part of a larger cycle of public lectures commissioned for 2025–28 by Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and the Ville d’Eu, Normandie (Seine-Maritime), commemorating the 800th anniversary of St. Laurence’s canonisation in 2025, the European Year of the Normans in 2027, and the 900th anniversary of St. Laurence’s birth and millennium of the 1028 foundation of the Dublin diocese and Laurence’s cathedral at Christ Church in 2028. For further details and updates regarding the lectures, please contact je***@*******as.ie or register via the sign-up link