An abstract is normally a one to three hundred word summary of your paper that allows the organisers of the conference to correctly place your presentation within the speaker timetable.
As multiple papers will be presented in different rooms at the some time it is useful to group speakers by their papers' subject areas and historic periods to facilitate attendees who are most interested in specific topic areas. The abstracts will also appear in the conference guide to allow attendees to make informed choices as to which presentations to attend. For those who wish to have their papers available on the conference website at a later date abstracts likewise act as summaries of the content available on the site.
Below I offer sample abstracts to demonstrate the size and format of history paper abstracts. These examples should not be taken as the only way of approaching the relatively simple task of writing an abstract but simply as possible formats.

Tonaí Ó Roduibh, IRCHSS Scholar

The paper uses construction workers' wages 1209-2004, and the skill premium, to examine the causes and consequences of the English Industrial Revolution. Real wages were trendless prior to 1800, as would be predicted for a Malthusian era. Comparing wages with population figures, however, suggests a much earlier break from the assumed technological stagnation of the Malthusian era, long before the Industrial Revolution and even the arrival of the modern English political system in 1689. Building worker wages also conflict with a human capital interpretations of the Industrial Revolution, as modeled by Becker et al. (1990), Galor and Weil (2000) and Lucas (2002). Human capital accumulation through education began when the rewards for these building skills were unchanged, and when fertility levels were increasing.

The papers of Captain Aodh Ó Néil offer an invaluable insight into the lives of the Irish who escaped Ireland during the years of the Wild Geese. His papers recount many of his experiences in Ireland during the resistence to the English Cromwellian invasion, his time in the French army and his later years in the service of the Hapsburgs. As well as offering a personal insight into the Irish experience in the service of mainland European armies Aodh Ó Néil's papers give an invaluable insight into the mindset of a member of one of Gaelic Ireland's leading families forced to flee the destruction of their native culture and religious oppression. Drawing on these unpublished docments this paper outlines the initial experiences of an Irish military refugee, his integration within larger European military structures and his reaction to news from home of increased persecution. These papers offer a new understanding of the history of the period and through a mixture of contemporary writing and later reflection allow us to better understand the lives and events of the Wild Geese.