Her research interests include Irish girls’ literary cultures, children’s and YA fiction, and contemporary Irish literature, particularly women’s writing. Her monograph, Irish Literature in the Celtic Tiger Years: Gender, Bodies, Memory, was published by Continuum in 2011. She has also published two collections of essays on contemporary Irish writers: Anne Enright (edited with Claire Bracken) and Colum McCann (edited with Eoin Flannery). She has published numerous book chapters and journal articles on subjects ranging from gender and the body in contemporary Irish fiction, historical children’s literature, to fairytale cinema, and Irish literary girlhood. In the spring of 2013, Dr. Cahill was awarded a three-year FRQSC grant for her project, "Ireland's Daughters: The Literary Cultures of the Irish Girl, 1870-1922" and is currently working on a monograph based on this research.