Dr. Ruth McManus

Dr Ruth McManus is Associate Professor in Geography and recently completed a five-year term as Associate Dean for Teaching & Learning in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is the author of Dublin 1910-1940: shaping the city and suburbs (2002, new edition 2021) and Crampton Built (2008), co-author of Building Healthy Homes: Dublin Corporation's first housing schemes 1880-1925 (2021) and Killester: from medieval manor to garden suburb (2025), and co-editor of Leaders of the City (2013) and Creativity from Suburban Nowheres: Rethinking Cultural and Creative Practices (2023). Her work includes articles on various aspects of urban geography, suburban history, population, heritage, tourism and geography education. She is particularly interested in the nature of the urban and suburban landscape and much of her work focuses on the physical and social development of everyday spaces. She has many media appearances, including TV, radio and newspaper articles.

Current projects include the Drumcondra fascicle for the RIA Irish Historic Towns Atlas new Dublin Suburbs series (due for publication in November 2026), research on lodgers and single-person households, and explorations into housing in provincial towns. She is an editor of the Irish Historic Towns Atlas and general secretary of the International Commission on the History of Towns. She is a past-president of the Geographical Society of Ireland.

PhD enquiries are encouraged in the areas of suburbanisation, the development of Dublin, heritage and landscape change.