Professor Eilionóir Flynn

Scientific Coordinator

Eilionóir is an Established Professor at the School of Law and Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP), University of Galway. She is a graduate of UCC (BCL, PhD) and has previously worked at the CDLP as a postdoctoral researcher, senior research fellow and senior lecturer. Eilionóir has published two monographs on national disability strategies and access to justice with Cambridge University Press and Routledge, and has edited a number of edited collections for Intersentia and Routledge. Her work on disability rights is widely published in international peer reviewed journals and her current research interests include legal capacity, access to justice, deprivation of liberty and the intersectionality of disability, gender and ageing. She is passionate about educating a new generation of disability activists and scholars, and has secured funding from the Irish Research Council to develop a network of early career researchers on disability rights on the island of Ireland. 

Eilionóir currently holds an Investigator Award from Wellcome Trust for a research project on reproductive justice for disabled people in Ireland. From 2015-2018, Eilionóir held a European Research Council Starting Grant for the VOICES project, which documented the narratives of people with lived experience of legal capacity denial. She regularly collaborates with civil society organisations and disabled people’s organisations at national and international levels. In Ireland, she has co-ordinated the Civil Society Legal Capacity Coalition to influence the drafting of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act and internationally she has supported the Secretariat of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly the working group which developed General Comment 1. 

Ms. Mary Faherty, Project Manager

Mary was appointed to the post of Project Manager (50%) to specifically manage and oversee the H2020 European Training Network (ETN) project Disability Advocacy Research in Europe (DARE) in March 2019. 
 
Mary joined the Centre for Disability Law and Policy in September 2008, having worked in the University since 2001. She graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Galway (formerly NUIG) in 2006.

Mary was the administrator in the CDLP – she managed various accounts and budgets, she was  responsible for PhD administration, she co-ordinated international and national conferences which the CDLP hosted, and supported all staff members as required.

Ms. Joanna Forde, Project Manager

Joanna is the Centre for Disability Law and Policy’s Business Manager. She oversees the day to day running of the centre and as part of her role works as Project Manager (50%) on the H2020 European Training Network (ETN) project Disability Advocacy Research in Europe (DARE) in March 2019. 

Joanna joined the centre in June 2013 on a part-time basis working as project manager on the EU Person project. She then moved to a full-time role working on both the EU Person project and the final months of the FP7 ITN DREAM project until taking up the post of Business Manager in March 2017.