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Former Faculty Members

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Gerard Casey

Emeritus Professor

Gerard Casey holds law degrees from the University of London (LLB) and UCD (LLM) as well as a primary degree in philosophy from University College Cork, an MA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame and the higher doctorate, DLitt, from the National University of Ireland. He was formerly Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.), 1983–1986. He was a member of the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin (UCD) (Head from 2001 to 2006) from 1986 until he retired in December 2015.

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Teresa Iglesias

Emeritus Professor | Founding Director, UCD International Centre for Newman Studies

The Centre is named for theologian, philosopher, scholar and poet St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Newman was the founder (in 1854) and first Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, a predecessor institution to University College Dublin. Newman is perhaps best known for his conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, as well as his volume of lectures The Idea of a University (1852) and autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1866). He was canonised as a saint of the Catholic Church in St. Peter's Square, Rome in 2019.

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Patrick Masterson

Emeritus Professor

Dr Masterson, a Professor of Philosophy who was elected Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology in 1980, had been a member of the Governing Body for seventeen years prior to his appointment as President, 1986-1993. In December 1993 he relinquished the presidency to accept the post of Principal of the European University Institute in Florence, thus becoming the first President of UCD to vacate the office for another appointment.

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Dermot Moran

Visiting Professor

Dermot Moran was Director of the International Centre of Newman Studies at UCD promoting the legacy of John Henry Cardinal Newman, first Rector of the Catholic University, Dublin, 1954-1858. He is now Chairperson of the Board of the UCD Newman Centre for the Study of Religions.

Dermot Moran is currently the inaugural holder of the Joseph Chair in Catholic Philosophy at Boston College and he also served as Chair of the Philosophy Department until June 2023. Previously, he held the full Professorship of Philosophy (Chair of Metaphysics and Logic) at University College Dublin, from 1989 to his retirement.

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Fran O'Rourke

Emeritus Professor

Fran O’Rourke is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. He received his MA (1st Class Honours) from University College Galway and studied at the universities of Vienna, Köln, Louvain (LicPhil), and Leuven, where he received his PhD summa cum laude. He has held Fulbright and Onassis fellowships, and in 2003 was Visiting Research Professor at Marquette Uni­versity. He is former director of the UCD International Summer School for Irish Studies. Primarily interested in the tradition of classical metaphysics, he has published widely on Plato, Aristotle, Neoplatonism, Aquinas, and Heidegger.

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Brendan Purcell

Emeritus Professor

Brendan Purcell entered the seminary in 1960 and was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1967. He did his BA at UCD and studied theology at the Lateran University in Rome, returning to UCD to teach Philosophy for nearly forty years until he retired in 2008.

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UCD School of Philosophy

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