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Dr. Pádraic Whyte

Associate Prof in Children's Literature (English)
Research Associate (Children's Research Centre)
ARTS BUILDING
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Pádraic Whyte

Associate Prof in Children's Literature (English)
ARTS BUILDING

 whytepa@tcd.ie

 3531896 1224

Research Associate (Children's Research Centre)


Pádraic is Associate Professor in Children's Literature, Director of EEDI, Disability Liaison Officer, and a director of the Children's Literature MPhil programme at the School of English. In November 2025, he organised and presented at The Pollard Collection of Children's Books: A Symposium at Trinity Long Room Hub. He spent Spring of 2024 as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa researching the relationship between Ireland and Hawai'i in terms of storytelling, islands, and identities in children's literature. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of The Ark, a cultural centre for children. His current research interests include: Genders and Sexualities in Children's Literature; Children's Cultural Archives and Book Collections; and Irish Children's Literature. He is happy to hear from prospective PhD students and Postdoctoral candidates with an interest in these, or related, areas. He is currently PI on the LA-TRAC project - creating Living Archives for Teachers, Researchers, Artists, and Children. His co-edited collection, The Writings of Padraic Colum: `That Queer Thing, Genius' was published by Routledge in 2024. In 2022, he completed a research project funded by the Irish Research Council and the Department of the Taoiseach that explored the use of literature to foster empathy and understanding between various communities on the island of Ireland. He is co-editor of Children's Literature Collections: Approaches to Research (Palgrave, 2017) which won the International Research Society for Children's Literature Edited Book Award, 2019. Pádraic co-established Ireland's first full-time master's programme in children's literature. He lectures on a range of topics at undergraduate and postgraduate level including genders and sexualities, children's film, critical approaches to children's literature (which includes Young Adult Literature), and Irish writing. His research focuses on myth and children's literature, genders and sexualities, LGBTQI+ children's literature, children's book collections, archives, theatre for children, and also 18th and 19th Century literature for children in Ireland. He is the former Chair of the KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards and was curator of the exhibition Upon the Wild Waves: A Journey through Myth in Children's Books which ran from Oct 2014 to Oct 2015 in the Long Room, Trinity Library. With the NCCB team he prepared the exhibition Come Closer: The Darker Side of Children's Books, which ran from Sept to Nov 2015 at Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street. In 2018, he co-curated Story Spinners: Irish Women and Children's Books at Trinity Library's Long Room. He served on the executive committee of the Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature for a number of years, and worked as curator of the Telling Tall and Tiny Tales literature programme at The Ark. He is a Research Associate at Trinity Research in Childhood Centre (TRICC), a peer reviewer for a number of international children's literature journals and Irish literature journals, an advisor to the Dutch Research Council, and a frequent consultant for the Arts Council of Ireland. He co-organised an event - `Same-Sex Relationships and Literature' - at TCD, which featured a keynote lecture by author Colm Tóibín titled `The Embrace of Love: Being Gay in Ireland Now'.
  18th Century literature   19th Century Irish cultural history   Anglo-Irish literature, poetry   Children's literature   Fiction 1780-1820   Gender studies   Irish writing, poetry, Drama, cinema
Project Title
 The LA-TRAC Project
From
1/07/24
To
Present
Summary
The LA"TRAC project is a collaboration between the Ark, a Cultural Centre for Children, and the School of English and seeks to establish a Living Archive for Teachers, Researchers, Artists, and Children. Guided by principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion as well as Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the research project breaks new ground and asks " how do we go about creating living cultural archives for, about, and with children?
Funding Agency
Trinity Research Boost Programme
Programme
Research Boost
Project Title
 Storytelling, Islands, and Identities: Ireland and Hawai"i, 1924-2024
From
13/01/24
To
18/04/24
Summary
As a Fulbright Scholar, I explored the relationship between Ireland and Hawai"i in terms of storytelling, islands, and identities in children"s literature. I travelled to Hawai"i to mark the centenary of the publication of Padraic Colum"s collection of Hawaiian myths `At the Gateways of the Day" (1924) and spent time in the archives, analysing the complexities and controversies behind this publication.
Funding Agency
Fulbright
Programme
Fulbright
Person Months
3
Project Title
 The National Collection of Children's Books
From
02/12/13
To
01/12/15
Summary
He was co-recipient of a major Irish Research Council/Government of Ireland research grant to establish the National Collection of Children"s Books (NCCB) project. Along with Dr Keith O'Sullivan, Pádraic received funding of over €350,000 for an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional project to help establish Dublin as a world centre of children's literature research. Over a period of two years, a team of researchers documented children"s book collections held in Trinity College Library, the National Library of Ireland, the Church of Ireland College of Education Library, the Cregan Library, St Patrick"s College (DCU) and Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street. Trinity"s Research Impact Unit published the NCCB Research Impact Case Study in 2022.
Funding Agency
Irish Research Council
Programme
RPG2013-3
Project Type
Interdisciplinary Research Project Grant
Person Months
24

Details Date
Advisor and funding assessor for the Dutch Research Council: Committee member in the SSH Open Competition M 2022 of the Dutch Research Council. 2022
Details Date From Date To
International Research Society for Children's Literature 2002 present
Children's Books Ireland 2002 present
Children's Novels After 1960 in, editor(s)Chris Morash , Cambridge History of the Irish Novel, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2026, [Pádraic Whyte], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Genders and Sexualities in, editor(s)Keith O'Sullivan Jennifer Mooney Peter Hunt Gabriel Dukels , The Routledge Companion to Young Adult Literature, London and New York, Routledge, 2026, [Padraic Whyte], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Pádraic Whyte, The Ark, Dublin: Children's Cultural Archives and the Space in Between, BUKS: The Journal of Child and Youth Cultures, 73/2026, 2026, p1 - 13, Journal Article, IN_PRESS
Pádraic Whyte, The History of Harry Spencer: Mary `Paul' Pollard and the beginnings of Irish Children's Literature, The Pollard Collection of Children's Books: A Symposium, Trinity Long Room Hub, November 2025, 2025, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte, Queering Hawaiian Time: From Hawaii"s Young People to Aik"ne, Children's Literature Association (USA), Online, June 2025, 2025, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte, Queer Intersections: Rethinking approaches to Genders and Sexualities in Novels for Young Readers, International Research Society for Children's Literature, University of Salamanca, June 2025, 2025, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte, The Potential and Possibilities of the Children's Cultural Archive: The Ark, Dublin, BIN-Norden, The Poetics and Politics of Children's Culture(s), Stockholm University, 8-9 May 2025, 2025, pp1 - 6, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte and Keith O'Sullivan, The Writings of Padraic Colum: 'That Queer Thing, Genius', London and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, 1 - 162pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Rewriting Buile Suibhne: Storytelling and The Frenzied Prince in, editor(s)Padraic Whyte Keith O'Sullivan , The Writings of Padraic Colum: 'That Queer Thing, Genius', London and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp142 - 154, [Padraic Whyte], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Introduction in, editor(s)Padraic Whyte and Keith O'Sullivan , The Writings of Padraic Colum: 'That Queer Thing Genius', London and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp1 - 7, [Padraic Whyte and Keith O'Sullivan], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
  

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Padraic Whyte, 'An Post Irish Book Awards', RTE One, 2024, 1 - 5, Broadcast, RELEASED
Padraic Whyte, Padraic Colum to Aikane: Ireland, Hawai`i, and Retelling Myths for Children, The Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 14/03/2024, 2024, The Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 1 - 20pp, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte, Reimagining Buile Suibhne: Padraic Colum's The Frenzied Prince (1943), Staff-Postgrad Seminar Series, School of English, Trinity Long Room ub, 2023, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte, Reflecting on Children's Book of the Year Awards, INIS Magazine, 68, 2023, p10 - 11, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Padraic Whyte, Keith O'Sullivan, Méabh Ní Choileáin, Jennifer Mooney, 'Padraic Colum: 50th Anniversary Celebration', https://dcu.mused.org/en/, https://dcu.mused.org/en/, Dublin City University, 2022, 1 - 15, Exhibition, EXHIBITED
Padraic Whyte, Curiouser and Curiouser: The Great Children's Book Quiz, International Literature Festival Dublin, Dublin, 24/05/2022, 2022, International Literature Festival Dublin, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Pádraic Whyte, KPMG Book Awards, Inis Magazine, 2022, p8 - 12, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Padraic Whyte, Keith O'Sulivan, Padraic Colum: 50th Anniversary Celebration of his Life and Work, 11/01/2022, 2022, Trinity Long Room Hub, Meetings /Conferences Organised, PRESENTED
Padraic Whyte, Reading Rooms: Fostering Constructive and Inclusive Dialogue Between Communities, 2022, Meetings /Conferences Organised, PRESENTED
Sinead Moriarty, Padraic Whyte, Elizabeth Nixon, Reading Rooms: Fostering Constructive and Inclusive Dialogue Between Communities, TARA, August, 2022, p1 - 39, Notes: [This project was funded by the Irish Research Council and the Department of the Taoiseach's Shared Island Unit as part of the New Foundations Scheme (2021)], Report, PUBLISHED

  


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Award Date
Fulbright Scholar Award 2023/24
International Research Society for Children's Literature Edited Book Award, 2019 2019
Queen's University Institute of Irish Studies Research Fellowship, 2008-2009 2008
Trinity Postgraduate Award 2002-2004