R. F. Foster (historian)

Robert Fitzroy 'Roy' Foster, FBA, FRHistS, FRSL (born 16 January 1949), publishing as R. F. Foster, is an Irish historian and academic. He is the Carroll Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, Oxford in the UK.

Foster was born on 16 January 1949 in Waterford, to two teachers: Betty Foster (née Fitzroy), a primary teacher, and 'Fef' (Ernest) Foster, a teacher of Irish. He attended Newtown School, Waterford, a multi-denominational school that was founded as a Quaker school in the late 18th century. He won a scholarship to attend St. Andrew's School for a year before reading history at Trinity College, Dublin. He was awarded an M.A. and Ph.D. by Trinity College, where he was taught by T. W. Moody and F.S.L. Lyons, and was elected a scholar in History and Political Science in 1969.

Prior to his appointment to the Carroll professorship, he was Professor of Modern British History at Birkbeck, University of London, University of London, and held visiting fellowships at St Antony's College, Oxford, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and Princeton University. Based in London as well as at Hertford College in Oxford, Foster visits Ireland frequently.

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