David Gardiner, PhD, '89 began on June 15 as the new Director for the Center for Irish Studies and Editor of the New Hibernia Review.
Gardiner joins St. Thomas as a clinical faculty member and will be working to develop courses and curriculum in Irish studies, a new feature for the center, as well as looking to develop study abroad programming, as well.
Gardiner graduated in 1989 from St. Thomas, where he studied under Thomas Dillon Redshaw, PhD. Both Gardiner's daughters are Tommies, as well: His eldest daughter, Olivia '18, is currently in law school at the University of Minnesota while his younger daughter, Phoebe, is currently studying at St. Thomas.
A poet, professor and editor, Gardiner received his degrees from University College Galway, Penn State University and his PhD from Loyola University, Chicago where his academic adviser Seán Lucy, PhD, chairperson of English at University College - Cork. From 2005–2010, he was founding editor of the international arts journal, An Sionnach, which published Van Morrison, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan, Ciaran Carson, Theo Dorgan and Eamonn Wall, among others.
He has served as Burns Scholar at Boston College, Director of Irish Studies at Creighton University where, for 10 years, he directed the largest summer program at Trinity College Dublin, and as UK Arts Fellow at the University of Ulster Coleraine, where he completed two manuscripts with the late Dean of Arts at UU, Prof. Robert Welch. At the first International Writers’ Workshop at the National University of Ireland Galway he studied under the direction of Gerald Dawe, Thomas Kilroy, John McGahern, Richard Murphy and others.
He has authored more than 60 journal publications and five books, including the Salmon poetry collections "Downstate" (2009) and "The Chivalry of Crime" (2015). His forthcoming collection, "Skenographia," will be published in 2020.
