NUI Galway’s Moore Institute is hosting the 19^th annual Chartism Conference from 4-5 July. The conference theme, ‘Ireland and British Democracy’, points to the movement of people and ideas in the battle for political rights.

The event will explore the positive and negative ways in which Irish nationalism and the British radical movement, Chartism, coalesced in the mid-nineteenth century.

The conference will be launched on Friday, 4 July at 7.30pm in the Mechanics’ Institute, Middle Street, Galway City. Professor Luke Gibbons of NUI Maynooth will deliver a talk at the launch entitled 'Limits of the Visible: Representing the Great Hunger'.

Conference organiser and NUI Galway History lecturer, Dr Laurence Marley, said: “The venue for the launch of the conference, the Mechanics’ Institute, has significance. It is a listed building dating back to the early Victorian period, and like similar institutes in Britain, it served as a self-improvement society for working men. Members of the Institute were also associated with the Repeal and Young Ireland movements of that period. In 1884, Irish nationalist leader, Michael Davitt, a man heavily influenced by the British democratic tradition, spoke there on the subject of reviving Irish industries.”

Speakers at the Chartism Conference will include: Tim Keane and Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, NUI Galway; Joe McGrath and Maura Cronin, Mary Immaculate College; Joan Allen, Newcastle University; Ian Haywood, University of Rochampton; Michael Huggins, University of Chester; Christine Kinealy, Quinnipiac University; Breandán Mac Suibhne, Centenary College; and Matthew Roberts, Sheffield Hallam University.

The conference programme may be accessed at www.galwaychartismday2014.wordpress.com

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