Professor Sean Campbell FRHistS

Sean is Deputy Dean for Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, where he is also Professor of Media, Music and Culture. Sean has led a series of highly successful REF submissions as well as an internationally excellent impact case study. His research explores two key areas: popular music and the Irish diaspora in Britain, and popular music and the Northern Ireland conflict. He has published widely on these topics, and has advised on a range of television and radio programmes as well as public exhibitions.

[email protected]

Background

Sean is a co-founder and co-convenor of the Modern Irish History seminar at the University of Cambridge. He has been a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, and has appeared on Channel 4 News, the BBC World Service, RTÉ, DW-TV (Germany), CBC TV and Radio (Canada), and ABC Radio (Australia). He has written for the Irish Times, and has been cited in The Times, the Guardian, and NME.

Sean's AHRC-funded book, 'Irish Blood, English Heart': Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England (Cork University Press) was launched at the Irish Embassy in London, and was named Music Book of the Year in the Sunday Times. The book was developed into a six-part television documentary series, Guth: Musical Sons of the Irish Diaspora (TG4). He is currently working on a wider study of the second-generation Irish in post-war Britain.

Research interests

• Popular music
• Music and conflict
• Music and diaspora
• Politics and popular culture

Areas of research supervision

Sean has supervised to completion at PhD and MPhil levels on topics including:

• Popular cinema and cultural identity
• Popular music in the digital age
• Gender, music and technology
• Cinema and Ireland

Qualifications

• PhD Media and Culture, Liverpool JMU, 2003
• MPhil Media Culture, Glasgow University, 1995
• BA (Hons) English and Politics, Strathclyde University, 1994

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• Oasis Live '25 (July-November 2025), I acted as an external adviser for WMX on an exhibition of Oasis material for Fan Experience ticket holders
• Raindog Films (2023-24), I advised on a project on music and migration
• Invitation au Voyage, documentary on music and the Northern Ireland conflict, on which I advised, and in which I appear (ARTE, France-Germany, 26 January 2023)
• Sean gave a Facebook live talk (for the London Irish Centre) on 14 May 2020 based on his research on migration and popular music
• Series Advisor, Guth: Musical Sons of the Irish Diaspora (six-part TV documentary series, broadcast on TG4, Ireland, in 2013 and 2014).
• External examinership of PhDs, including at the University of Cambridge, the University of Southampton, Åbo Akademi in Finland and Murdoch University in Australia

Selected recent publications

Campbell, S. 2025. ‘Behind NME Lines: the politicisation of the UK music press and its coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict', in J. Davis (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Global 1980s (London: Routledge), pp. 295-310.

Campbell, S. 2023. 'Shane MacGowan: a timeless voice for Ireland’s diaspora in England', The Conversation, 30 November 2023

Campbell, S. 2021. ‘NME's "Irish Troubles”: political conflict, media crisis and the British music press’, Etudes irlandaises, 46(1), pp. 11-54

Campbell, S., 2020. '"Agitate, educate, organise": partisanship, popular music and the Northern Ireland conflict', Popular Music 39(2), pp. 233-56.

Campbell, S. (with Roger Swift), 2017. 'The Irish in Britain', in Eugenio Biagini and Mary Daly (eds), The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland (Cambridge University Press), pp. 515-533.

Campbell, S., 2011. Irish Blood, English Heart: Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England. Cork: Cork University Press.

Recent presentations and conferences

'The Importance of Being Irish: Oasis, "Britpop" and Irish ethnicity in England', (What’s the story) Reunion glory?: Assessing Oasis’s legacy as Morning Glory turns 30, Université Rennes 2 (France), 27 November 2025

'Inhabiting the Hyphen: some reflections on the legacy of the Anglo-Irish Agreement for the Irish in Britain', The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement in Historical Perspective, Churchill College, Cambridge, 14 November 2025 (invited talk)

'Irish Blood, English Heart: Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England', Éire to Everywhere: Stories Without Borders, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, Dublin, 14 August 2025 (invited public talk)

‘Combat Rock: Popular Music and the Northern Ireland Conflict’, Cambridge Festival of Ideas, 23 March 2023

Popular Music-Making among the Irish Diaspora in England. Luton Irish Forum, 5 November 2013 (invited public talk).

Migration and Cultural Expression. Emigration Colloquium, Trinity College Dublin, 10 April 2013 (invited public talk).

Dwellers on the Threshold. Headingley LitFest, Headingley Enterprise and Arts Centre, Leeds, 8 March 2013 (invited public lecture).

Popular Music and Diaspora. Modern Irish History Seminar, Cambridge University, 6 February 2013 (Invited public talk).

Media experience

'Give Oasis Back to the Irish', Back to the Irish, 10 December 2023, BBC Radio Foyle and BBC Radio Ulster

'Give The Smiths Back to the Irish', Back to the Irish, 26 November 2023, BBC Radio Foyle and BBC Radio Ulster

Invitation au Voyage (ARTE, France-Germany, 26 January 2023)

Bookmark, Cambridge 105 Radio (16 March 2023)

Interview with Chris Mann, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (8 March 2023)

Interview with Steffi Callister, Cambridge 105 Radio (22 February 2023)

Series Adviser (and onscreen contributor), Guth: Musical Sons of the Irish Diaspora (TG4, 2012)

Made in Britain, BBC Radio 2, 12 June 2012

Follow-Up Albums, BBC Radio 4, 17 May 2012

World Update, BBC World Service, 20 March 2012