Dr Maria McHale
BMus (NUI), MA (City), PhD (Lond)

Maria McHale holds a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Musicology at the Conservatory.

She completed her undergraduate studies at University College Cork, followed by a Masters in Musicology at City University, London, and a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her PhD thesis, A Singing People: English Vocal Music and Nationalist Debate, 1880-1920, is a study of late nineteenth-century British musical culture and in particular the issues and tensions surrounding English opera and choral music, and the cultural milieu in which the formation of nationalist ideals took place.

Her recent research is concerned with nineteenth-century Irish musical culture, in which she has examined temperance musical culture, debates on music, morals and improvement; political ballads and the development of romantic-nationalist songs and more recently, operatic culture in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Dublin.

She has taught courses in musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London, Sydney Conservatorium of Music and at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. She is on the Editorial Board for the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland  and is a committee member for RILM Ireland. She is the Honorary Secretary for the Society for Musicology in Ireland www.musicologyireland.com

Recent publications include:

‘Music Publishing’, Oxford History of the Irish Book, vol. iv, ed. James Murphy, (OUP forthcoming 2010)
‘Moore’s Melodies: music and politics in Dublin, 1879’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 109C (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2009)
‘The Irish Melodies: reception and legacy’, My gentle harp: Moore’s Irish Melodies, 1808-2008, ed. Siobhan Fitzpatrick (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2008)
‘Singing and Sobriety: Music and Temperance in Ireland, 1838-43’, Irish Musical Studies, Volume 9: Music in Nineteenth-Century, ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny, (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2007)
‘The (un)Englishness of Gerontius’, Musicology Review (UCD Press, 2007)