Over the past six years UU historians have given lectures and papers in every continent except South America. In 1998 Jeffery was Lees Knowles Lecturer at Trinity College Cambridge, one of the very highest honours available anywhere for a military historian. Colleagues have delivered keynote addresses to important meetings and conferences, including the 1996 Royal Irish Academy 18th annual conference of the Irish National Committee for the Study of International Affairs (Sharp); 1998 Workshop on Constitutional Developments, International Center for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka (Fraser); 1999 Exhibiting Empire conference, National Maritime Museum (Jeffery); 2000 Ulster-American Heritage Symposium, Omagh (Ickringill), and have been invited commentators at other international gatherings, e.g. 75th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles conference, Berkeley, California, 1994, and conference on West European Security and Franco-German relations, Historische Kolleg, Munich, 1997 (Sharp); principal rapporteur at the Regional Carpathian conference on ‘New Teaching in the History of Central and Eastern Europe’, Chernivtsy, Ukraine, 1997 (Pearson).

One indicator of increased research activity is colleagues’ increasing number of conference papers. Among the most significant meetings addressed have been: 1995: International Political Studies Association conference on divided societies, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (Fraser); 1996: Economic History Society (Geary); 80th anniversary of the Somme conference, Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne, France (Jeffery); Pacific Basin International Popular Culture Conference, Honolulu (Springhall); 1997: Popular Culture Association, San Antonio, Texas (Ickringill); Imperial War Museum/ Australian War Memorial conferences on ‘Australia & Britain in War in the 20th Century’, London and Canberra, and New Zealand Conference of Historians, Massey University (Jeffery); History of Science section of the New York Academy of Sciences (Sturdy); 1998: conference on political violence in India, Panjab University (Fraser); Historical National Accounts Group for Ireland annual meeting (Geary); Hawthornden Foundation Como Conversazione on ‘Historical and Military Biography’ (Jeffery); VIIIth Conference of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, LSE (Pearson); Popular Culture Association conference, Orlando, Florida (Springhall); International Society for Classical Studies conference, Tübingen (Sturdy); 1999: University of Siena, Conference on Situazioni d’Assedio (Sieges), Montalcino (Fraser); Economic History Society (Geary); British Society for Sports History (Ickringill); Boer War Centennial conference, Leeds (Jeffery); Cromwell Association conference, Huntingdon (Lindley); conference on the Northern Ireland peace process, University of Zaragoza (Patterson); Public Record Office Conference for the 80th anniversary of the Paris Peace Conference (Sharp); 10th International Conference on the Enlightenment, Dublin (Sturdy and O'Brien); 2000: Consultation on the Draft Constitution, Law and Society Trust, Colombo, Sri Lanka (Fraser); World History Congress, Oslo (Jeffery); Religion and the Cold War conference, St Katharine’s, London (Kirby); European Studies Research Institute/Centre for Irish Studies seminar on Irish Republicanism, University of Salford (Patterson); Geographies of Home conference, UCL (Ryan). In 1999-2000 colleagues also gave research papers at the universities of Belfast, Cambridge, London, Oxford and University College Dublin.

Another important mark of research esteem has been our editorial work. Lindley's The English Civil War and Revolution: a Sourcebook, published by Routledge (1998), is firmly established as an essential selection of historical texts. Fraser and Springhall edit the series ‘Studies in Contemporary History’ for Palgrave. Geary has been joint editor of Irish Economic and Social History since 1991. Ickringill serves on the Editorial Board of the Sports Historian. Jones was reviews editor of Social History of Medicine, 1992-7. Jeffery finished ten years as joint editor of Irish Historical Studies in 1997 and remains on the journal’s editorial board. He is also on the Editorial Board of Small Wars and Insurgencies. He is joint editor (with Thomas Bartlett of University College Dublin) of two book series published by Irish Academic Press: ‘New Directions in Irish History’ and ‘Classic Irish Reprints’. Patterson is a member of the Editorial Board of the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies and Perspectives on European Politics and Society. Pearson has been General Editor of the Longman/Pearson ‘Social History of Europe’ series since its launch in 1998. Sturdy is a co-editor of the journal Majestas.

In addition to our international Visiting Scholars, noted in RA5, international and national collaborations include Geary’s work with Dr A. Bielenberg (University College Cork) on an index of Irish manufacturing output, 1800-1841 and Ickringill’s with Professor S L Hilton of The Complutense University, Madrid, coordinating a group of historians from the UK, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia working on ‘European perceptions of the Spanish-American War’. The resulting volume of essays was published in 1999. Kirby is developing joint work on religion and the Cold War with Professor John Pollard of Anglia Polytechnic University. Murray, with Dr I. Jackson of De Montford University, is co-ordinating ‘Uneasy Allies’, a major international study of Anglo-American relations. O’Connell is working on a study of mail order retailing with Dr D. Porter (Worcester University College) and Dr R. Coopey (Business History Unit, LSE). Sharp, with Dr Glyn Stone of the University of the West of England at Bristol, directed a team of scholars in a study of Anglo-French relations in the 20th century, the results of which were published in a jointly-edited volume by Routledge. Sturdy is collaborating with C. Demeulenaere-Douyère of the French Archives Nationales in preparing a critical edition of ‘L’Enquête du Régent, 1716-1719’.

Among the distinctions and office-holding in professional bodies are the following: Fraser is Chairman of the Northern Ireland Museums Council and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland. Jeffery is a member of Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, was Irish delegate to the Comité International des Sciences Historiques, Montréal (1995) and Oslo (2000); President, Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies, 1996-7; Visiting Scholar, Australian National University and Australian Defence Force Academy, 1997-98; and has been a Trustee of the Ulster Historical Foundation since 1999, as well as a member of the AHRB history postgraduate awards panel. Jones was Visiting Scholar, Boston College, Spring Semester 2000. O’Connell is a member of the Social History Society Executive Committee. Ryan was Visiting Scholar at the Huntingdon Library, San Marino, California, Feb.-May 2000. Sharp is Chair of the North-West Ulster branch of the Historical Association. Sturdy is President of Majestas, the International Society for the Study of Monarchical and Papal Ritual.

Colleagues have contributed to major collective works of Irish scholarship. Fraser (with Professor J. J. Lee of University College Cork) was Historical Adviser to the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (1996), to which Hunter, Jeffery and Loughlin contributed. Fraser, Geary, Ickringill, Jeffery, Loughlin and Sturdy also contributed to the Oxford Companion to Irish History (1998). In addition, Fraser has contributed the entry on 'The Arab-Israeli Wars' to the Oxford Companion to Military History (2001). Colleagues have written entries for the New Dictionary of National Biography as follows: Fraser (1); Hunter (5); Jeffery (3); Jones (3); Lindley (20); O'Brien (4); Patterson (4); Ryan (2); Springhall (2). Members of the unit have examined masters and doctoral degrees at the following universities: Aberdeen, Belfast, Cambridge, Dundee, Keele, Lampeter, Lancaster, Leeds, London, Oxford, St Andrews, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin.