Dr Nicole Volmering
Principal Investigator of Early Irish Hands.
As PI, Dr Volmering oversees the core research programme and has responsibility for project management, supervision, and dissemination programmes. Her primary research focus is on codicological, palaeographical, and historical analysis of the manuscripts selected for project and coordinating the development of the digital strand of the project.
Dr Volmering is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Trinity College Dublin. Before taking up her current post, she worked as Assistant Professor in the School of Education and held funded research fellowships at the IKGF, Friedrich-Alexander Universität, Erlangen, at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and at Trinity College Dublin (IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship). She obtained her PhD in the Dept. of Early Irish at University College Cork, where she held the De Finibus Fellowship. Her dissertation won the SCE prize for Best Dissertation in Celtic Studies for that year.
Her research interests centre on the manuscript culture and religious literature of the insular world, particularly medieval Irish martyrologies, eschatology, transmission of books and texts, and palaeography. She has taught a range of medieval history and language modules and is currently teaching palaeography and manuscript studies. In addition, she has an interest in Higher Education (history and pedagogy) and regularly teaches T&L practices.
Peter Fraundorfer
Doctoral researcher on Early Irish Hands.
Peter’s PhD thesis examines a particular group of manuscripts written in Irish script from the mid-ninth century that were once kept in the library of Reichenau Abbey. By analysing and re-evaluating the proposed palaeographic and textual connections between these manuscripts, he aims to shed new light on the provenance and grouping of the Reichenau manuscripts. This will include exploring the Carolingian influence on Irish script and the networks of distribution for Irish manuscripts on the Continent.
Peter graduated with first-class honours from the University of Vienna with a BA in History in 2017. Subsequently, he obtained an MA in Historical Research, Auxiliary Sciences of History and Archival Science at the Institute for Austrian Historical Research with distinction in 2020. For his master’s thesis he collected, edited, and analysed the high and late medieval lives of Saint Rupert of Salzburg, for which he received the sponsorship award of the Archbishop Rohracher Study Fund. He joined Early Irish Hands in 2022, after working two years as an archivist.
Mart Makkink
Technical Assistant on Early Irish Hands.
Mart works with Dr Volmering on the design and development of a digital database for the project. Besides his work for Early Irish Hands, Mart works as research assistant at 4-Oceans (Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities). Mart holds an a BA in History and an MA in Digital Humanities from the University of Groningen and will graduate with distinction from Trinity College Dublin with an MPhil in Medieval Studies in 2023.