Dr Mary C. Murphy is a lecturer in politics with the Department of Government, University College Cork. 

Mary specialises in the study of the EU and Northern Ireland politics. Her monograph Northern Ireland and the European Union: The Dynamics of a Changing Relationship was published by Manchester University Press in April 2014. She was also co-editor of a special issue of Administration in 2014 - 'Reflections on Forty Years of Irish Membership of the EU' - with John O'Brennan (NUIM). In 2015, Mary was awarded a Fulbright-Schuman Fellowship and was based at George Mason University, Virginia. She was also recently awarded a prestigious Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration by the European Commission. 

Mary's secondary research interest is in first-time TDs and processes of parliamentary socialisation. In July 2013, her report At Home in the New House? A Study of First-Time TDs was published by the Hansard Society and launched in Leinster House by the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Barrett TD, and the Chief Whip, Paul Kehoe TD. Mary has also conducted research on MPs in Myanmar/Burma with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). In late 2014, Mary was appointed to the Seanad Reform Working Group by An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny.