Academic biography

Kevin Rafter is Full Professor of Political Communication and a specialist in the politics and media of contemporary Ireland. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Boston College in 2024. 

His books include Dillon Rediscovered (2025), Taoisigh and the Arts (2022), Resilient Reporting: Media & Elections in Ireland since 1969 (2019; co-authored) and The Irish Presidency: Power, Ceremony & Politics (2014; co-editor). He has also written several  political biographies and histories of Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, Clann na Poblachta and Democratic Left.

He has chaired the two national bodies responsible for the arts in Ireland, the Arts Council and Culture Ireland, and has served as a board member of commercial and not- for-profit organisations including Chair of Compliance Committee of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (now Media Commission). His contribution to Irish public life has also included chairing  an independent expert taskforce on civil service reform as well as facilitating government formation negotiations as an independent rapporteur.  

Since joining DCU in 2010, he has been Head of the School of Communications, Associate Dean for Research and Chair of the MA Political Communication programme. He is also the Irish contact for the international Worlds of Journalism project and oversees DCU’s annual journalism scholarship programme at the Washington Bureau of Arizona State University. He is a member of the editorial boards of Administration and Journalism Practice, and has edited special editions of both journals as well as The Irish Review.

Previously, he was Head of the Department of Film and Media at the National Film School, IADT and prior to 2008 worked as a leading political journalist. He reported on the Irish general elections in 1997, 2002 and 2007 as well as the peace process in Northern Ireland. Best known as a presenter of the This Week radio programme for RTÉ News & Current Affairs, he