About the Editor
My name is Dr Rachel Finnegan. I am a professional proofreader and copy-editor with extensive experience in academic editing and editorial training. I specialise in copy-editing and proofreading academic documents and art books. My academic background is in the classics. After completing my studies in Ireland and Greece, I worked for 23 years in the Irish higher education system. I was an administrative officer at the Royal Irish Academy (1992–1995) and a lecturer in Arts & Heritage Management at Waterford Institute of Technology (now SETU) (1995–2014). During the latter position, I was Head of Creative & Performing Arts for three years (2006–2009).
In late 2014, I took early retirement from my lecturing position and retrained as a proofreader and editor. At the start of 2015, I established Irish Academic Editing.
I have a special interest in editorial training and from September 2016-2022 I was a tutor for an online Diploma in Proofreading and Editing (College of Media and Publishing, UK).
Academic qualifications
- BA (Hons) in Classics, Trinity College Dublin (1986)
- PhD in Classics, Maynooth University (1991)
- Certificate in Irish Archaeology, University College Cork (1995)
Professional qualifications/training
Since my career change in 2015, I have completed the following professional training courses:
- Diploma in Proofreading and Editing (Distinction), College of Media and Publishing, UK, 2015
- References, SfEP (now CIEP), UK, 2016
- Progress in Editorial Skills, Publishing Training Centre, UK, 2017
- Proofreading Theses and Dissertations, SfEP (now CIEP), UK, 2018
- Rewriting and Substantive Editing (Non-Fiction) Publishing Training Centre, UK, 2018
- Writing Plain Language, Plain Language Commission, UK, 2019
- Diploma in Webediting (Distinction), College of Media and Publishing, UK, 2019
Professional and academic affiliations
- Full Member of the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland (AFEPI) (since 2015)
- Member of the Irish Association of Professional Historians (since 2025)
- Member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI)
Skills
- Proofreading
- Copy-editing
- Substantive editing
- Academic writing
My publications
I am the author/editor of 12 academic books.
The first was an adaptation of my doctoral dissertation, Women in Aristophanic Comedy, published by Adolf M. Hakkert (1995).
In 2006, The University of Utrecht published my monograph on the Divan Club, an eighteenth-century, Ottoman dining club in London.
My third book was a new edition of an eighteenth-century travel account of Ireland, published by UCD Press (2008).
Between 2011 and 2013, I published a series of three eighteenth-century eastern travel letters through my own publishing house, Pococke Press.
In 2019 and 2021, De Gruyter Brill published two more of my books:
- English Explorers in the East
- A new, revised edition of Richard Pococke's Letters From the East (1737-1740)
In 2022, I was the lead researcher and author of The Life and Works of Robert Wood, published by Archaeopress.
In 2024, I published a biography of Anglo-Irish woman Judith Chavasse, based on her diaries and memoirs.
In 2025, I published the memoirs of Judith Chavasse and her two sisters Sue Fitzgerald and Hats Haythornthwaite, based on their diaries and memoirs.
In 2026, I completed a new edition of Lord Charlemont's Greek and Turkish Essays, which are to be published in 2027.
I have also written numerous articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
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