Nicholas Canny

Nicholas Patrick Canny (born 1944) is an Irish historian and academic. Since the mid-1970s, Canny has been the leading authority on early modern Irish history. He has been a lecturer in Irish history in NUI Galway since 1972 and professor there since 1979.

Born at Clifden on 4 January 1944 to Cecil Canny and Helen Joyce, he was educated at Kilfenora national school, St. Flannan's College, Ennis, and University College Galway (now NUI Galway) from where he graduated with a BA in 1964, and an M.A. in 1967. Research student at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 1969–70, and graduated PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.

Since the mid-1970s, Canny has been the leading authority on early modern Irish history. He has been a lecturer in Irish history in NUI Galway since 1972 and professor there since 1979. His first paper was published in 1970 and focused on Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and in the subsequent years additional examinations of Gaelic Ulster followed. His 1974 O'Donnell lecture (published in 1975), The formation of the Old-English elite in Ireland, was a ground breaking study of that community. It was, however, his 1976 study The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: a Pattern Established, 1565–76 that brought him to international attention. This book built on his PhD studies in the United States. He is the only person to have won the Irish Historical Research Prize on two occasions, in 1976 for the above book and in 2003 for Making Ireland British 1580–1650.

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