Fiona began her studies at University College Cork where she graduated in 2000 with a BA (Joint Honours) in European Integration and Spanish. Her undergraduate degree involved her living in Granada for a year and studying politics at the Universidad de Granada. Following on from this, she completed a Masters in Spanish in 2001 where her dissertation examined the portrayal of politics during the transition to democracy in detective fiction. This MA also involved teaching Beginners Spanish language classes to first year undergraduates. Fiona then came to UL to study for a Masters in European Integration; where the title of her dissertation was "The European Union, the United States and the Middle East: a triangular relationship?". She is enrolled as a PhD candidate with the Department of Politics and Public Administration where her current work examines competition and cooperation between the EU and the US in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the years 1973-2008.