I am the Pratt Fellow in History at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. I previously worked as the National Army Museum Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge in England. My research interests include military music, duelling and honour among British army officers, and the broader connections between war and society in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
I completed a DPhil thesis on British military music during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars at the University of Oxford in 2022. The resulting research, which is being published as a book, has been awarded the André Corvisier Prize by the International Commission of Military History and the Pollard Prize by the Institute for Historical Research. An Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, I have worked as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire and served as a Trustee of the Society for Army Historical Research. I have also published several scholarly articles and discussed my research widely in the media, appearing twice on the BBC’s hit family history show “Who Do You Think You Are?” You can find out more information about my research and publications by browsing this website and exploring the blog.
– Eamonn O’Keeffe
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Publications
E. O’Keeffe, ‘From Amputee to Author: Shadrack Byfield and the Making of a War of 1812 Veteran’, Journal of British Studies (forthcoming, January 2026)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘British Military Music in Battle during the Napoleonic Wars’, International Journal of Military History and Historiography (February 2025)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘British Military Music and the Legacy of the Napoleonic Wars’, The Historical Journal (October 2024)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793–1815’, Historical Research (November 2023)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘“A Natural Passion?” The 1810 Reflections of a Yorkshire Farmer on Homosexuality’, Historical Research (February 2021)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘The Anatomy of a Drum Corps: Drummers and Musicians in the Canadian Regiment of Fencible Infantry, 1803-1816’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research (Winter 2020)
E. O’Keeffe (ed), Narrative of the Eventful Life of Thomas Jackson: Militiaman and Coldstream Sergeant, 1803-1815 (Helion, 2018)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘The Old Halberdier: From the Pyrenees to Plattsburgh with a Welshman of the 39th’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research (Spring, Summer, and Autumn 2017)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘Such Want of Gentlemanly Conduct: The Court Martial of Lieutenant John de Hertel’, Journal of Canadian Military History (Autumn-Winter 2016)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘Fops under Fire: British Drum-Majors in Action during the Napoleonic Wars’, The Napoleon Series (June 2016)
E. O’Keeffe, ‘New Light On Toronto’s Oldest Cold Case: The 1815 Murder of John Paul Radelmüller’, The Fife and Drum (December 2015)
Book reviews and conference reports
Review of ‘Childhood and War in Eighteenth-Century Britain’ by Jennine Hurl-Eamon, English Historical Review (forthcoming)
Review of ‘The Horrible Peace: British Veterans and the End of the Napoleonic Wars’ by Evan Wilson, War in History (January 2025)
Review of ‘Rebellion, Invasion and Occupation: The British Army in Ireland, 1793–1815’ by Wayne Stack, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, (Winter 2023)
Review of ‘Cornelius Collett and the Suffolk Yeomanry, 1794–1820: Defending Suffolk against the French’, ed. Margaret Thomas, H-Net (June 2023)
Report on ‘Theatre on the Move in Times of Conflict, 1750–1850’ (conference), Eighteenth-Century Music, (September 2020)
Review of ‘Peterloo: The English Uprising’ by Robert Poole, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, (Winter 2020)
Prizes and Grants
December 2024 – Weil Fund award from Queens’ College, Cambridge, to attend the Society for Military History annual conference in Mobile, Alabama.
April 2024 – Awarded a Fellowship of the Society for Army Historical Research.
August 2023 – Awarded the Pollard Prize for the the best paper presented at the Institute of Historical Research by a postgraduate student or early-career researcher. The paper was published in the journal Historical Research.
June 2023 – Awarded the André Corvisier Prize, which recognises the best PhD thesis in military history completed in the past calendar year, by the International Commission of Military History.
August 2022 – Recognized as runner-up for the Nicholas Temperley Prize, awarded for the best student paper at the biennial conference of the North American British Music Studies Association.
January 2022 – Received the Michael Burden Award for best paper on musicology by a graduate student at the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies annual conference.
May 2021 – Received the Mary LeMessurier Award for the Study of History from the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund to support a final year of DPhil studies.
March 2020 – Received First Prize in the Three Minute Military Thesis Competition sponsored by the British Commission for Military History.
March 2018 – Awarded an AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership Studentship to fund a DPhil in History at the University of Oxford, covering tuition fees and living expenses for 3 years.
June 2017 – Received the Conrad Russell Prize (Merton College) for best undergraduate thesis in History.
April 2013 – Received First Prize in Historica Canada’s Heritage Minute contest for an outstanding public history media project – a short film interpreting the winter march of the 104th Regiment during the War of 1812.
Select Media Engagement
ITV News, ‘Cambridge historian trumpets evidence that Napoleonic Wars led to creation of British brass bands’, ITV News, 31 October 2024
BBC News, ‘New study overturns story of brass bands’ origins’, 30 October 2024
The Times of London, ‘Army blazed trail for colliery brass bands’, 30 October 2024
History Ireland, ‘Kilkenny Militia band uniform’, March/April 2024 issue
New York Times, ‘Space Force Song Shoots for the Stars, but Some Think It Falls Flat‘ by M. Levenson, 21 September 2022
BBC One (TV), ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ – spoke with singer-songwriter Pixie Lott about military bandsmen in her family tree. First aired 9 November 2021
BBC One (TV), ‘Songs of Praise’ – interviewed for a feature on the Matthew Tomlinson diary. Aired 27 September 2020
BBC News, ‘The 200-year-old diary that’s rewriting gay history‘, Sean Coughlan, 10 February 2020. Followed by interviews on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, BBC Radio Oxford, BBC Radio Leeds, and Dan Snow’s History Hit podcast, as well as coverage on CNN and other international media outlets. My article on the diary was published in the journal Historical Research.
BBC One (TV), ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ – spoke with Kate Winslet about her ancestor, a drummer in the British army in the early nineteenth century (see below). First aired 12 August 2019.
Conference and Seminar Presentations
‘No Common Man: Searching for Shadrack Byfield, a Veteran of the War of 1812’, Wellington Congress, University of Southampton, April 2025
‘British Military Music and the Legacy of the Napoleonic Wars’, Society for Military History conference, Mobile, Alabama, March 2025
‘Military Music and Popular Protest after 1815’, Royal Musical Association 150th anniversary conference, Senate House, University of London, September 2024
‘Instrumental Impedimenta: The Material Culture of British Military Music’, Material Matters conference, Fort Ticonderoga Center for Digital History, New York State and online, January 2024
‘The Military Origins of the British Brass Band Tradition’, Royal Musical Association annual conference, University of Nottingham, 14-16 September 2023
‘Musical Warriors: Corvisier Prize Presentation’, XLVIIIth Congress of the International Commission of Military History, Istanbul, National Defense University (Turkey), 3-8 September 2023
‘British Military Music and Morale during the Napoleonic Wars’, Symposium in honour of Christopher Duffy, British Commission for Military History, National Army Museum, 3 June 2023
‘No Common Man: Searching for Shadrack Byfield, a Veteran of the War of 1812’, Homecoming after War: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, University of Warwick, 20 May 2023
‘Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793–1815’, British History in the Long 18th Century seminar, Institute for Historical Research, 11 January 2023
‘Diligence, Discipline, and Time: Training Military Musicians during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars’, North American British Music Studies Association conference, Illinois State University and online, 21-24 July 2022
‘The Silence of the Bands: British Military Music in Battle, 1793-1815’, 88th Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, Fort Worth and online, April 28-May 1, 2022
‘Germans, Choristers and Young Beginners: The Recruitment of Musical Warriors during the French Wars’, British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies conference (online), 5-7 January 2022
‘No time [should] be lost in procuring the performers: The Recruitment and Training of Military Musicians, 1793-1815’, Graduate Seminar in History, 1680-1850, University of Oxford, 23 November 2021
‘Regimental repertoires: the manuscript music books of Napoleonic-era British military musicians’, Theatre on the Move in Times of Conflict (1750-1850), Magdalen College, University of Oxford, 18-19 September 2019
‘An Evil of Long Standing: martial musicians, partisan performances and the militarization of British electoral spectacle’, War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon (British Commission for Military History), King’s College London, 13-14 September 2019
‘Regimental repertoires: the manuscript music books of Napoleonic-era British military musicians’, 12th Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, 3-5 July 2019
‘Siblings or Subordinates? – Brotherhood, Hierarchy and Discipline among Napoleonic-era British Officers’ (revised and expanded), Seventh Wellington Congress, University of Southampton, 12-13 April 2019
‘The Musical Armed Nation: Mass Mobilization, Music and Politics during and after the Napoleonic Wars’, European Song and Political Protest workshop, University of Warwick, 24 November 2018
‘Siblings or Subordinates? – Brotherhood, Hierarchy and Discipline among Napoleonic-era British Officers’, New Voices in the History of War, All Souls College, University of Oxford, 18 July 2018
‘Musicians against Napoleon: British Drummers and Bands in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars’, Redcoats, Tommies, and Dusty Warriors: Britain’s Soldiers c.1650 to the present, University of Leeds, 10-11 July 2018
‘Instruments of War: Military Music during the Napoleonic Wars’, Instruments of the Eighteenth Century Seminar, Oxford University Music Faculty, 1 November 2017
1812 and all that 