A.C. Elias Research Travel Fellowship
The A.C. Elias Ireland/North America Research Travel Fellowship provides up to $2,500 in funding to support “documentary scholarship on Ireland in the period between the Treaty of Limerick (1691) and the Act of Union (1800).” It enables North American-based scholars to travel to Ireland and Irish-based scholars to travel to North America.
Projects conducting original research on any aspect of eighteenth-century Ireland qualify for consideration, but recipients must be either (1) members of ASECS who have permanent residence in the United States or Canada, or (2) be members of its Irish sister organization, The Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society (ECIS) who are resident in Ireland.
The A.C. Elias Ireland/North America Research Travel Fellowship honours the contribution to scholarship of the late Dr A.C. Elias, Jr., an independent scholar from Philadelphia.
How to apply for the 2024 Fellowship
Applications for the 2024 A.C. Elias Ireland/North America Research Travel Fellowship are due before midnight (Eastern Daylight Time, i.e. GMT -4) on 15 November 2023 to the fellowship’s two trustees. These are:
- Jason McElligott, Director, Marsh’s Library, St. Patrick’s Close, Dublin 8, Ireland (jason.mcelligott@marshlibrary.ie) and
- James May 1423 Hillcrest Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17603, USA (jem4@psu.edu).
Applicants must submit in one document, in either Word or PDF format:
- A covering letter with the applicant’s postal and email addresses, as well as the name of the Society to which the applicant belongs: i.e., either ASECS or ECIS.
- a short curriculum vitae (no more than 3 pp.)
- a project description (3 pp. or less, describing the work to be done during the proposed research and its potential contribution to the field)
- a one-page bibliography of related books & articles
- an outline budget for the research trip
External Referees
In addition, applicants must ensure that signed letters of recommendation from two referees are sent by email as PDFs to both trustees of the fellowship, Dr May and Dr McElligott. If the letters cannot be supplied as PDFs, an original copy should be posted to one of the trustees.
Deadline for the 2024 Fellowship
The deadline for receipt of both the application and the two letters of reference is midnight (Eastern Daylight Time, i.e. GMT -4) on 15 November 2023.
Winner of the 2023 Fellowship
The A.C. Elias Research Travel Fellowship for 2023 was awarded to Dr Claire McCormick, who recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Limerick on Palatine immigration into Ireland.
The research travel fellowship allowed Dr McCormick to examine records in American repositories. At the Library of Congress in Washington and the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia, she searched the papers of John Archdale and William Penn for evidence of their efforts to bring migrants to Carolina and Pennsylvania.
