Professor Elizabeth Meehan (Queen's staff member from 1991-2005)
Appreciations appeared in the Irish Times and The Scotsman (27.01.18) and in the Times Higher Education (08.02.18)
Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Meehan died suddenly on Saturday January 6th in her home in Edinburgh.
Elizabeth Marian Meehan completed her undergraduate degree at Sussex University and post-graduate education at Oxford. Her first full-time lectureship was at Bath University from where she was granted leave to hold a Hallsworth Fellowship at Manchester University.
Appointed to a chair in Politics at Queen’s University Belfast in 1991 (a post she held until 2001), she also became a Jean Monnet Professor. From 2001 until she retired on 20 July 2005, Professor Meehan was Director of the Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research at Queen’s.
During the 1990s, she was the first woman to serve as Chair of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom and subsequently served as an Honorary Vice-President. The Association made her a ‘Lifetime Achievement' award in 2005 and, in 2006, the UACES made an award to mark her contribution to European Community studies in Ireland. She also became a Visiting Fellow at The Policy Institute, Trinity College Dublin (1998-99).
She held honorary positions at the Policy Institute, Trinity College, and in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin. She was an elected member of the Royal Society for the Arts, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Academy of the Social Sciences, and the Royal Irish Academy.
A portrait of Professor Meehan by the Northern Ireland artist John Kindness hangs in the Great Hall at Queen’s. Unveiled in June 2008 on International Women’s Day, it was commissioned by the School of Law, the Institute of Governance, the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, the Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics (CAWP) and the Queen's Gender Initiative.
Professor Meehan was a huge supporter of women's rights and the work of CAWP during her time at Queen’s.
Angelia Wilson, Chair of the Political Studies Association described Professor Meehan as “an inspiration to countless young women scholars, a helpful and supportive colleague to all and a dear, dear friend to many of us.”
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