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Richard English headshot

Richard English
Honourary Professor

Richard English is Director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast, where he is also Professor of Politics.  Between 2011 and 2016 he was Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations, and Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), at the University of St Andrews.  His books include the award-winning studies  Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003) and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006).  His most recent books are Does Terrorism Work? A History (2016), The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism (co-edited, 2019), and The Cambridge History of Terrorism (edited, 2021).  He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), an Honorary Fellow of Keble College Oxford, a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Chicago, and an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews.  In 2018 he was awarded a CBE for services to the understanding of modern-day terrorism and political history. In 2019 he was awarded the Royal Irish Academy’s Gold Medal in the  Social Sciences. He has delivered invited Lectures about his research in more than twenty countries.