2025 Peadar Kirby Prize awarded to Fionnuala O’Connor

The Department of Politics and Public Administration are delighted to award the 2025 Peadar Kirby Prize for the best Final Year Project to Fionnuala O’Connor.

Fionnuala wrote a dissertation about the mistreatment of female soldiers in the Irish Defence Forces and British Armed Forces that was commended by its examiner for being ‘gripping’, if ‘chilling’, and ‘very well executed’. A copy of her thesis can be found here. 

The Peadar Kirby prize is named in honour of our Emeritus Professor of International Public Policy and is awarded annually, in recognition of the strongest Final Year Project submitted by an undergraduate student studying in the Department of Politics and Public Administration. A list of previous winners, and their dissertations, can be found here