Gerry Smyth (14 September 1961) is an academic, musician, actor and playwright from Dublin, Ireland. He works in the Department of English at Liverpool John Moores University., where he is Professor of Irish Cultural History. His early publications were mainly in the field of Irish literature, although since 2002 he has also written widely on the subject of Irish music. Smyth was an early advocate of postcolonial criticism in Irish Studies, although more recently he has been keen to emphasise the autobiographical dimension of critical discourse. Decolonisation and Criticism won the American Conference for Irish Studies' Michael J. Durkan Prize for best book published in literary criticism, arts criticism or cultural studies in 1999. Beautiful Day: Forty Years of Irish Rock (co-authored with Sean Campbell) was launched in the Clarence Hotel in Dublin in September 2005. Our House: The Representation of Domestic Space in Contemporary Culture (co-edited with Jo Croft) was launched at the Tate Liverpool in September 2006. His collection of critical essays Music in Irish Cultural History also won the Michael J. Durkan Prize (2009). Smyth has lectured throughout Europe and the United States on various aspects of Irish culture; most recently he was a keynote speaker at IASIL 2017, held in Singapore. In September / October 2006 he was Academic-in-Residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. He was appointed Visiting Professor of Irish Studies at the University of Vienna between October 2010 and February 2011. Smyth's latest book is Celtic Tiger Blues: Music and Modern Irish Identity (Routledge, 2016), and includes analyses of work by James Joyce, the Pogues, Bernard MacLaverty, The Waterboys, Tim Robinson, and Augusta Holmes.