Milwaukee Irish Fest Summer School Instructors
Eileen Murphy
Instructor Website: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/eileen-murphy(d6c485a9-de92-450c-9873-e58c680f0b5e).html
Teaching: FS02: Sampler: Archaeology - The Story of Osteoarchaeology (Friday only)
Eileen Murphy is a member of the Archaeology and Paleoecology / School of Natural & Built Environment at Queen's University Belfast. She is a bioarchaeologist and has undertaken numerous biocultural studies of prehistoric Russian human remains and Irish populations of all periods.
She is currently involved in a variety of projects including one exploring cranial trauma in Eneolithic Russia and another on maternal death in medieval Ireland. She is also involved in an a DNA and palaeopathological study of leprosy in medieval Ireland.
Her research also extends into mortuary practice, particularly in relation to the burial of children as well as atypical burial practices. She has undertaken extensive research on cillíní (children’s burial grounds), unconsecrated burial grounds reserved largely for the burial of unbaptised infants, and is the co-editor (with Melie Le Roy) of a forthcoming volume entitled: Children, Death and Burial: Archaeological Discourses (2017).