"Postdoctoral Researcher (BROKENSONG Project)"

Department: Music
Vacancy ID: 040484
Closing Date: 29-Mar-2026

The Music Department at Maynooth University invites applications for a 22-month position as a Postdoctoral Researcher to work with Professor Karen Desmond’s research team on the project “Polyphonic Singing and Communities of Music Writing in Medieval Britain and Ireland, c. 1150 to c. 1350” (BROKENSONG) (funded by a 5-year ERC Consolidator Grant). See the project website: https://ahi.maynoothuniversity.ie/brokensong/.

Do you want to work in Ireland on an exciting European Research Council funded project analysing a lost musical corpus recovered from faded and damaged manuscript fragments? For this postdoctoral position, we seek a candidate to conduct analysis of the music corpus recovered, transcribed, and edited within the scope of this project. The candidate’s background can be either in traditional music analysis (with a PhD in musicology, music analysis or music theory) and/or in computational musicology, digital humanities, computer science, artificial intelligence, or mathematics/statistics, with a PhD in one of these fields or a closely related field, and interested in applying this skillset to the analysis of music data. The place of work is Maynooth University, Ireland: remote work from another country cannot be facilitated.

The BROKENSONG project examines singing in medieval Britain and Ireland during a transformative period of western music history, c. 1150-1350. The project team is digitally encoding approximately 700 music compositions copied on over 120 fragmentary music manuscripts. The project reconstructs lost vibrant musical cultures and communities.

Salary:

Senior Postdoctoral Researcher 2026: €54,851 p.a. (point 1, with increment)

Postdoctoral Researcher 2026: €46,805 p.a. (point 1) - €53,391 (point 6, with increment)

Appointments will be made in accordance with public sector pay provisions.

Closing Date:

23:30hrs (local Irish time) on Sunday, 29th of March 2026.

Applications must be submitted by the closing date and time specified above. Any applications which are still in progress at the closing time on the specified closing date will be cancelled automatically by the system.

Late applications will not be accepted.

Maynooth University is an equal opportunities employer

The position is subject to the Statutes of the University