June 2002

release date: 18 June, 2002 NUI Galway to Honour Individuals for their Outstanding Contribution to Society One of the most successful Irish-American politicians of his generation and a man who has close links with Galway, will be among six people who will be conferred with Honorary Degrees at NUI, Galway on Friday, 28 June, 2002. William (Bill) Bulger was President of the Massachusetts Senate from 1978 to 1996, making him the longest-serving holder of that office in the history of the State. During his long and illustrious career as Senate President, William Bulger oversaw the introduction of legislation for improved education and healthcare services in Massachusetts, paying special attention to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. In 1996, he became the twenty-fourth President of the University of Massachusetts. Under his leadership, the University has made significant progress, in terms of academic activity, research funding and private support. William Bulger grew up in South Boston, which had one of the strongest Irish communities in the US. He married Mary Foley, whose mother Sarah came from Carna, Co Galway and they have nine children. The Senator and his wife retain strong links with the west of Ireland, which they have visited on a number of occasions. Another person who has made an extraordinary contribution to her community and who will be conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree is Sister Helen Prejean. About twenty years ago, Sr. Helen began ministering to persons sentenced to death in Louisiana penitentiaries. She wrote about her experiences in her best-selling book, Dead Man Walking, which was adapted and turned into the Oscar-winning film of the same name, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Sr. Helen is a member of an inner-city religious community in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her encounters with Louisiana's death row soon focussed her phenomenal energies and charismatic persona onto the more general issue of capital punishment. She is currently one of the leading activists in the United States and internationally for the abolition of the death penalty. Ali Hewson and Adi Roche, of the Chernobyl Children's Project, are household names in Ireland for their tireless efforts in alleviating the suffering of the victims of one of the world's most famous nuclear accidents. Ali Hewson is the Chernobyl Children's Project active and working patron and is deeply involved, with Adi Roche, in every aspect of the project. Adi Roche is the founder of the Chernobyl Children's Project. Under her leadership, the Project has initiated sixteen aid programmes, delivered medical aid valued at over $25m to the areas affected by the nuclear accident and brought over 8,500 children to Ireland for rest and recuperation. Over 60 children have been brought to Ireland for life-saving operations and treatment. In 1998, Adi Roche received Belarus' s highest national honour, the Frantsysk Skrayna Order for her outstanding contribution to the life of the Belarussian people. More recently, Ali Hewson has spearheaded a postcard campaign to persuade the British Government to close the nuclear power plant at Sellafield. An Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws will be conferred on both women. Dr Rosa Gonzalez-Casademont, is Professor of English at the University of Barcelona. She will be conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Literature Degree. Dr Gonzalez-Casademont is well known in Spain for her work in promoting the study and appreciation of Irish literature and film and was responsible for the setting up of the Spanish Association of Irish Studies in 2001. Professor Salvatore Rionero is Professor of Rational Mechanics at the University of Naples. Since 1980, he has been Director of the annual International Summer School in Mathematical Physics at Ravello, at which scientists from NUI Galway and UCD have given courses. Professor Rionero is Author/Co-author of over one hundred papers and numerous books and has made many distinguished research contributions in the areas of non-linear stability of viscous fluids and qualitative estimates for partial differential equations. He will be conferred with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science. Ends Information from:Máire Mhic Uidhir, Press Officer, NUI, Galway.Tel. 091 750418

Release date: 10 June, 2002 Germaine Greer to lead International Line-up at Centre for Irish Studies Conference in NUI Galway 'Ned Kelly and the Irish Inheritance' is the provocative title of a talk to be delivered by Germaine Greer at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI, Galway on Wednesday 19 June. Professor Greer will deliver the keynote address at the Twelfth Irish Australian Conference, 'From Youghal Harbour to Moreton Bay: Remembered Nations, Imagined Republics', 19-22 June, which brings together many of the most eminent scholars in Irish Australian studies from Ireland, Australia, Britain, South Africa and New Zealand. With more than fifty papers scheduled for presentation, the Galway conference is set to be the largest to date with papers presented on a broad range of issues including migration, ethnic identities, multiculturalism, health and gender, Irish-aboriginal relations, industrial relations, republicanism, language, literature and the efforts of Irish missionaries in Australia. 'We are particularly pleased with the diversity of the material which will have considerable appeal to a general audience and will greatly extend considerably the scope of future research in Irish-Australian studies,' says Louis de Paor, Director of the Centre for Irish Studies. 'The timing of the conference is also auspicious given the recent and unprecedented development in of Irish Studies in the antipodes which has seen the establishment of centres for Irish Studies at some of Australia's most prestigious universities in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and elsewhere. It also confirms our commitment to a more outward looking inclusive definition of Irish Studies.' Among the more intriguing titles in the conference programme are Ann McVeigh's talk on child migration which has been the subject of recent television documentaries such as 'The Leaving of Liverpool' and 'The Lost Children'; Rosemary Sheehan's comparison of the treatment of women prisoners in Mountjoy and Melbourne jails; and Chris Eipper's 'Virgin Worship, Desire, Sex and Gender' which is part of a work in progress provisionally titled Virgin Mothers, Bad Girls and Murdered Babies. Chris Whittington's study of Haemochromatosis, a hereditary condition, involving iron deficiency, which has its highest incidence among Irish people and their descendants, will provide interesting insights into this little-known condition. 'Free Women on a Savage Frontier' is a title of Pat Jacobs' talk, which looks at the work of a group of Irish nuns among Aboriginal and Asian people in Broome, Beagle Bay and Lombadina, one of the most violent frontiers in Australia, when the pearling industry was at its height. Other highlights include a reading on Thursday, 20 June, by John McGahern from his acclaimed new novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, which has just been awarded the Irish Fiction Award at Listowel Writers Festival and on Friday, 21 June, there will be an evening of songs, poems and ballads from Irish-Australia with Seán Tyrell, Shane Howard and Vincent Woods. A new collection of Australian Landscape Studies by Connemara artist, Mary Donnelly, will be exhibited throughout the four days of the conference. Everyone is welcome to attend the conference and a daily registration fee includes access to all events as well as lunch and coffee. All the conference proceedings will take place in the Ó Tnúthail Theatre, AM150, Arts Millennium Building, NUI, Galway. The evening events will commence at 8.00 p.m. in AM250, Arts Millennium Building. Admission to the evening presentations by Germaine Greer, John McGahern, Evelyn Conlon, Seán Tyrell, Vincent Woods and Shane Howard, is by ticket only and is free of charge. Tickets are available in advance from Áras Fáilte, the University's Information Centre. (Tel. 091 750418). Full details of the conference programme are available on the Centre for Irish Studies website at www.irishstudies.ie or from Conference Director Dr Louis de Paor, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI, Galway. Tel: 353+91+512198 Email: louis.depaor@nuigalway.ie Ends Information from:Máire Mhic Uidhir, Press Officer, NUI, Galway.Tel. 091 750418

Release date: 4 June, 2002 Scientists discover new link between marine algae and climate regulation Research by NUI, Galway's Professors Colin O Dowd and Gerard Jennings, along with a team of leading scientists from Finland, Germany, and the US have discovered a new mechanism for marine aerosol formation. Marine aerosols, and their cloud-forming component, comprise one of the most important climate regulation systems through their reflectance of the sun's rays. Their research concluded that biogenic iodine vapours, released from marine algae such as plankton, kelp and seaweed, drives marine aerosol formation and thus climate regulation. Changes in marine biota activities will alter the emissions of iodine vapours, which in turn, will alter the Earth's "heat-shield". The NUI, Galway, team are conducting more research into this topic this month and next, through a research programme funded by the European Commission and involving a group of 12 research institutes from around Europe and the US. The research is being conducted at the Mace Head Atmospheric Science Research Station in Carna, Co. Galway. The studies at Mace Head are supported through the use of two research aircraft, one leased and managed by NUI, Galway, and a second from a German research Institute. The research planes are based in Galway and will help to quantify the regional extent of these aerosol plumes along the coast and out over the ocean. The initial results were published this week in Nature, the premier research journal world wide, Professor O'Dowd's second article published in the journal in as many months. The first was focused on aerosol formation from volatile organic carbon-based vapours released from the forest canopy. Ends Information from: Máire Mhic Uidhir, Press Officer, NUI, Galway. Tel. 091-750418

Release date: 4 June, 2002 NUI Galway Facilitates New Approach to Finance Management A groundbreaking series of round table meetings, organised by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and facilitated by Martin Fahy, a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Information Systems at NUI Galway, is examining the effectiveness of Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) processes amongst leading companies. Two Irish companies are taking part in the round table discussions, which examine ways in which the finance functions of organisations can leverage off investment in Enterprise Resource Planning. "Effectiveness in terms of strategic enterprise management is a key competitive advantage for any company," said Dr Martin Fahy. "I believe however that we, as finance professionals are not living up to management's expectations. Technologies such as ERP, data warehousing, budget and planning software are all designed to improve efficiencies to businesses but the full potential is not being realised. This is not necessarily a technology issue - it means a re-think of the way in which organisations approach strategic management." The round table meetings form part of a two-year research project with eight companies in total taking part. The companies themselves, blue-chip companies chosen for their innovative approach to management issues, are funding the project. "These meetings are an opportunity for companies to fundamentally re-think how they conduct their business." continued Dr. Fahy. "Many finance professionals feel that they don't have the time to look in detail at their processes. With these meetings they are off-site and have an opportunity to discuss issues of concern with other like-minded organisations. Industry is looking for what has been described as 'thought-leadership' from Universities and we can offer ideas and principles on which organisations can base their strategies for management. Inefficiencies in the finance function are creating work and Finance Directors must be able to take a step back from current IT systems and assess their effectiveness. We need to examine how the current technology can be exploited in order to achieve the reporting and analysis objectives set out by management. What we don't want is a situation where SEM is seen as a quick fix solution for a firm's financial reporting inadequacies. The Round Table is essentially a think-tank designed to help firms and others develop best practice approaches to developing their SEM capability. As such the purpose of the Round Table is to bring together a range of finance professionals in firms from different industries to share experiences and identify solutions." The Round Table will also have consultants and academics who will be providing thought leadership on emerging trends and approaches and helping the firms develop a pathway to better SEM capability. "The Round Table will meet every 8 to 10 weeks and over, a twelve-month period, we ll develop a range of best practice approaches", says Dr. Fahy. The companies taking part include Powergen, BBC and Unilever. Project web site is: www.cimasem.com ENDS For further information:Maire Mhic Uidhir, Press Officer, NUI, Galway. 091-750418