Thomas J. Finan

Finan was born in St. Louis, MO, and graduated from Saint Louis University High School in 1985. Finan received his BA in Religious Studies and Anthropology with Honors from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1989. He received his AM from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where he studied medieval church history under Bernard McGinn. He completed a PhD in History from the Catholic University of America in 2001 under Professor Lawrence Poos, focussing on the history and archaeology of thirteenth century Ireland.

Thomas J. Finan (born 1967) is an American medieval historian and archaeologist, and presently Chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is formerly the Associate Director fo the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Director of the Walter J. Ong, S.J. Center for Digital Humanities and the Director of the Center for International Studies at Saint Louis University. Finan is a specialist in the history and archaeology of medieval Ireland, and has appeared in a number of popular formats as well as an Emmy-nominated documentary, True Gaelic, concerning his archaeological excavations at the moated site near Lough Key, County Roscommon, Ireland, in 2016. He has appeared in local and international media spots. He is a licensed archaeologist in the Republic of Ireland, and is a Registered Professional Archaeologist in the United States. He is a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2012. In 2019, he was elected to the Comite Permanante de Chateau Gaillard: International Castle Studies Colloque, representing Ireland.