Professor of Historical Theology in the University of Nottingham
Thomas O’Loughlin (born 1958, Dublin) is Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham, and the Director of Studia Traditions. His area of research expertise is the tradition and reception of memory within the early churches. His research has focused on the theology of the early medieval period, and on the works of insular writers in particular.
Tom earned a BA, MPhil, PhD (NUI), STB (Maynooth) and DD (Bangor). He studied for his BA in Philosophy and Medieval History in UCD, before going to Maynooth College for his BD(STB), before moving on to do a M.Phi in UCD. He holds a Diploma in Theology from Mater Dei in Dublin, and Diploma in Pastoral Theology from All Hallows College, Dublin.
Tom began his career as a teacher in the University College Dublin, he also taught at the Dominican Studium, Tallaght and the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy and was later made a scholar at the School of Celtic Studies in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. In 1997, he worked in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Wales, Lampeter, where he became the first Professor of Historical Theology in the University of Wales in February 2006. He joined the University of Nottingham in 2009. His research contribution within the academy was recognized in 2017 by the Royal Irish Academy when he was elected an Honorary Member. He is a priest of the Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton.
From this historical perspective he also works as a constructive theologian; and in recent years has published two book-length studies of the Eucharist: The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings (2015) and Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians