Events

Seminar

IRISH STUDIES SEMINAR:  We are delighted to announce our next Irish Studies Seminar, '“Hear The Band which is more powerful than the Atom Bomb!” Labour, Aesthetics, and Irish Sit Down Dance Orchestras, 1940 – 1960' which will be given by Rebecca Miller (Hampshire College), our visiting IACI-NUIG Visiting Fellow in Irish Studies, 2018-19.
All are welcome!

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Meitheal Graduate Seminar

Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar:  "Na Píobairí Uileann, 'Sharing the Sound':  Pedagogy and uileann piping in the 21st century".  Speaker:  Louise Mulcahy, PhD in Irish Studies.  Respondent:  Michael Lydon, PhD Candidate, Centre for Irish Studies.

Everyone welcome to attend

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Irish Studies Seminar

Seminar:   ‘The catholic church and the 1916 Rising’.

Speaker:   Oliver P. Rafferty SJ, Professor of modern Irish and ecclesiastical history, Boston College

Everyone is welcome to attend the seminar.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Seminar

Irish Studies Seminar:  'From Garamond to 1916: Typography in context and revolution'.

Speaker:  Leon Butler, Design Innovation Research Fellow, NUI Galway.

Everyone welcome to attend.

Typography is based on the premise of embedded experiences. They speak to us in silent tones with an accent all of their own. When, in 1916, the leaders of the rebellion were tasked with delivering a new Ireland with its own voice and identity the choice of type itself had a story to tell. The Proclamation was printed in the basement at Liberty Hall, is informed by the hurried artefacts from which it was born and the printer's instructions from Connolly – that it should be similar in aesthetic to an auctioneer’s notice. We trace the origins of movable type and the democratisation of information through the printing press and the story the type can tell.

 

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Irish Studies Seminar

Seminar:  'Denlineating the Grey Zone of Ireland's Great Famine', Dr Breandán Mac Suibhne, Centenary University, US and IACI-NUI Galway Visiting Fellow, 2016-17.
Respondent:  Professor Clare Connolly, Department of English, University College Cork.
Everyone is welcome to attend

 

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Irish Studies Seminar

"A Geographer's exploration of the route of the Rising in East County Galway, 1916".  Speaker:  Dr Mark McCarthy, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology.  Respondent:  Dr Tony Varley, Sociology and Politics, NUI Galway.
Everyone is welcome to attend.

Dr Mark McCarthy is Lecturer and Programme Chair in Heritage Studies at the Department of Heritage and Tourism, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1999 and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2013. Mark’s book, Ireland’s 1916 Rising: Explorations of History-Making, Commemoration & Heritage in Modern Times (Ashgate, 2012), was shortlisted for the Geographical Society of Ireland’s Book of the Year Award. Since then, he has published further works on the history, geography and memory of 1916. He has also collaborated with Galway County Council, Galway City Museum, RTÉ and the Galway Film Centre on a range of 1916–2016 legacy initiatives. In 2016, Mark was the Programme Coordinator of GMIT’s 1916–2016 Centenary Programme of Events and was awarded the GMIT President’s Award for Teaching Excellence.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Sean-nós singing workshops

Workshops with Sarah Ghriallais,  Sean-nós Singer in Residence at NUI Galway, have begun at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway. 
The final workshop in this series will take place on Wednesday, 8th March at 7pm.

Workshops are free and everyone is welcome to attend.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 7pm

Meitheal Graduate Seminar

The next Meitheal: Irish Studies Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar which will take place this Thursday 30 March at 4pm, Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies.

‘The Transition of Reputation:  Gerald Griffin and Dion Boucicault'.  Speaker:  Dr Mark Corcoran, NUI Galway.
Respondent:  Dr Ian Walsh, O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway.

Everyone welcome to attend.

 

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Irish Studies Seminar

Irish Studies Seminar:  ' Country Borders:  The role of Borderlands in Shaping a Musical Imaginary'.  Speaker:  John Millar.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Further information:  https://www.facebook.com/NUIGalwayCentreforIrishStudies/

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 16.00

Meitheal: Irish Studies Graduate Seminar

Frances Carter (PhD in Geography, NUI Galway) will present 'Labour Agency among the Dubai-Irish: Social stagers or acquiescent actors?' on Thursday 10th November at 4.00pm.
Respondent: Ms Sara Hannafin.  All are welcome to attend.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Irish Studies Seminar

Irish Studies Seminar:  'Convenient amnesia and identity:  building with earth in Ireland'.  Speaker:  Dr Fidelma Mullane, IRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Irish Studies and Moore Institute 2015-16.
Everyone is welcome to attend.

Further information at:  https://www.facebook.com/NUIGalwayCentreforIrishStudies/

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 16.00

Sean-nós Dancing Workshop

The final Sean-nós workshop with Pádraic Ó hOibicín, Sean-nós Dancer in Residence at NUI Galway will take place on Wednesday 26th October.  This workshop is free of charge and everyone is welcome to attend.

Location: An Taibhdhearc, Middle Street    
Time: 7.00pm

Meitheal - Irish Studies Graduate Seminar

Mr Eoin Byrne will deliver his paper "Listen to my voice":  Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille and Postcolonial Modernisms' this Thursday 29 September at 4pm at the Centre for Irish Studies.  Respondent:  Nessa Cronin

Eoin's doctoral work examines the writings of Samuel Beckett, Máirtín Ó Cadhain and Brain O'Nolan. 

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Irish Studies Seminar

Seminar:  "Puzzle me/ the right answerto that one":  translating Heaney's poetic world into Italian.  Speaker:  Dr Debora Biancheri.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Public Interview with Jean Butler (choreographer and dancer)

As part of the Irish Studies International Summer School 2016, a public interview with Jean Butler, choreographer and dancer, will take place on 22 June, at 6.30pm in Ó hEocha Theatre. The interview will be moderated by Dr Méabh Ní Fhuartháin. Admission is free, but if you want to book your place in advance go to: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/public-interview-with-dancer-and-choreographer-jean-butler-moderated-by-meabh-ni-fhuarthain-tickets-25814464759?utm_term=eventname_text

Location: Ó hEocha Theatre, NUI Galway    
Time: 18.30

Lecture in the Library

The Léachtaí sa Leabharlann series returns to the City Library on Wednesday 15 June when Pádraig Ó Snodaigh will deliver a lecture entitled ‘Recollection and recording: A historian’s encounters with the makers of history’. The lecture is part of the programme of commemoration curated by the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI Galway to mark the centenary of the 1916 Rising.
 
Since its publication in 1966, Ó Snodaigh’s history of the Irish Volunteershas been a primary source for historians of the Irish revolution. His talk will take listeners backstage to eavesdrop on conversations between the professional historian and those who participated in the momentous events of 1916 and the subsequent war of independence. Those who provided eye witness accounts of those events for the young historian included Éamon de Valera, Bulmer Hobson, Frank Fahy, Alfie Monaghan, and Alf Cotton.

Location: Galway City Library    
Time: 6.30pm

Lectures in the Library

'To trouble the living stream':  1916-2016

'Tom Kenny and the 1916 Rising in County Galway'
The final lecture in the Léachtaí sa Leabharlann series curated by the Centre for Irish Studies to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising will focus on the contribution of Craughwell blacksmith, Tom Kenny (1877-1947) to revolutionary politics in Galway in the decade before the rebellion.

Dr Tony Varley will explore the tension between Kenny and Liam Mellows, ‘captain’ of the Galway rebels who told the blacksmith later that year that he ‘had taken no part in the Rising’ and the extent to which the Galway rebels were let down by incompetent leadership.

Location: Galway City Library, Augustine Street    
Time: 6.30pm

Second Series of Sean-nós Dance Workshops

Páraic Ó hOibicín, Sean-nós Dancer in Residence at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, will offer a series of five sean-nós workshops this Autumn.  The first  workshop will take place in An Taibhdhearc on Wednesday 21 September at 7pm.

The workshops are free and open to all.

This project is funded by Ealaín na Gaeltachta, Údarás na Gaeltachta and An Chomhairle Ealaíon in association with the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI, Galway.

Location: An Taibhdhearc    
Time: 7.00pm

Sean-nós Dancing Workshop

The final workshop in a series of five Sean-nós dancing workshops with Páraic Ó hOibicín, the newly appointed Sean-nós Dancer in Residence at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, will take on Wednesday,  9th March, at An Taibhdhearc at 7pm.

A native of Lettermuckoo, Connemara, Páraic Ó hOibicín is one of a generation of dancers who led the revival of sean-nós dance in the late twentieth century.  Key to Páraic’s style of dancing, is a faithful nod to older dancers and the tradition that he saw in his youth.

The workshops are free and open to all.

This project is funded by Ealaín na Gaeltachta, Údarás na Gaeltachta and An Chomhairle Ealaíon in association with the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI, Galway.

Location: An Taibhdhearc    
Time: 7.00pm

Lectures in the Library

Location: Galway City Library    
Time: 6.30pm

Irish Studies Seminar

Seminar:  'Fallen Poets, Haunted Ruins and Oliver's Copper-Nose:  Tracing Oliver Cromwell's afterlives in Ireland'.
Speaker:  Sarah Covington, CUNY and IACI Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Irish Studies.

Everyone welcome

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Martin Reilly Lecture

 
MARTIN REILLY LECTURE SERIES

Comhrá Ceoil and the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, are delighted to announce details of the next talk in the Martin Reilly Lecture Series for 2016.  Given by Dr Seán McElwain, it will take place at 6.30pm on Tuesday, 22 March 2016, at Galway City Library. 

 ‘Our Dear Dark Mountain with the Sky Over it: Retracing the musical imprints of the Sliabh Beagh region of Monaghan/Fermanagh’ draws on PhD research into the traditional musical heritage of the north Monaghan/east Fermanagh region conducted by Seán at Dundalk Institute of Technology. The album ‘Our Dear Dark Mountain with the Sky Over it’ the culmination of this academic research, was recently awarded the prestigious TG4 Comharcheol Gradam Cheoil. Uncovering a wealth of previously neglected material, this lecture will present an overview of the research findings behind the recording project, illuminating some of the major musical figures in that region’s musical history.

From Co. Monaghan and now resident in Dublin, Seán McElwain is an academic researcher and member of the traditional group Téada, with whom he has toured and recorded extensively.  He is centrally involved in the Scoil Cheoil na Botha traditional festival in Scotstown, Co. Monaghan.

This series of talks is dedicated to Martin Reilly, the celebrated Galway uilleann piper, and gives an opportunity to researcher-practitioners in Irish traditional music and dance to present their work in a public forum.  The success of the series thus far confirms the interest in research of this kind in Galway, where traditional music and dance are part of the cultural fabric of the city.

Everyone welcome and free admission to all talks.

Location: Galway City Library    
Time: 6.30pm

Lectures in the Library

Location: Galway City Library, Augustine Street    
Time: 6.30pm

Lectures in the Library

'To trouble the living stream':  1916-2016

The fourth in the series of lectures curated by the Centre for Irish Studies to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising will tell the remarkable story of Dubliner Eilish Dolan from her wrongful incarceration as a 15 year old girl to her adult career as a writer of romantic fiction. It is a story of courage and betrayal, love and resilience that epitomises the political, human and social contradictions of Ireland as it emerged from the 1916 Rising through the war of independence and the civil war.

The lecture on their Aunt Eilish will be delivered by Michael Dolan and Pat Dolan, UNESCO Chair and Director of the Child and Family Research Centre at NUI Galway.

Location: Galway City Library, Augustine Street    
Time: 6.30pm

Irish studies Seminar

Seminar:  'The Poetics of Hope in Colum McCann's Fiction'.  Speaker:  Marie Mianowski, Universite de Nantes.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm

Lectures in the Library

'To trouble the living stream': 1916-2016

‘A soldier’s song’, the second in a series of lectures curated by the Centre for Irish Studies as part of its programme of commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising will focus on Peadar Kearney, composer of the national anthem. Kearney survived the struggle for independence and experienced poverty and neglect in the Free State for which so many of his close friends had given their lives. Disillusion led to depression but there seems to have been a conspiracy, involving political parties, families and friends, to mythologise him as a serene patriot rather than reveal him as a damaged veteran.

Tehe lecture will be delivered by Colbert Kearney, Professor Emeritus of English at UCC, author of The Writings of Brendan Behan (1977), The Glamour of Grammar (2000), a study of Seán O'Casey, and the novel, The Consequence (1993).

Everyone welcome.

 

Location: Galway City Library    
Time: 6.30pm

Lectures in the Library

‌As part of its programme of commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising, the Centre for Irish Studies will present a series of public lectures in Galway City Library.

‘Lectures in the Library/Léachtaí sa Leabharlann’ will explore the lives of individuals who were involved in the Irish revolution, including Peadar Kearney who wrote the ‘Soldier’s Song’, the anarchist Captain Jack White, Éamonn Ceannt, and Fr Richard Henebry, who compared Pádraig Pearse’s short stories to ‘the mincing of an under-assistant floor-walker of a millinery shop’ but is now best known for his pioneering work on Irish traditional music.

The first lecture in the series will focus on Liam S Gógan (1891-1979), who coined the term ‘poblacht’, the first word in the proclamation of the Irish republic. Gógan was directly involved in the revolutionary politics that led to the Easter Rising and remained an unregenerate Irish republican throughout his life. He was also the most significant poet writing in Irish between 1916 and 1945. 

‘Liam S Gógan: The poet, the pedant, and the revolutionary’, will be delivered by Louis de Paor and will explore the life and work of one of the most accomplished and unusual Irish poets of the twentieth century.

The lecture will begin at 6.30pm on Tuesday 26 January at Galway City Library in Augustine Street.

Lectures in the Library Schedule

Location: Galway City Library    
Time: 18.30

Meitheal - Postgraduate Research Discussion Group

Meitheal seminar:  'Engine no longer burns on wood: Popular music, belatedness and digital reception'.  Speaker:  Michael Lydon.
Respondent:  Malachy Egan.

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 1.00pm

Lectures in the Library

 ‘Pearse’s ‘eccentric critic’: Dr Richard Henebry, 1863-1916’

The third in the Léachtaí sa Leabharlann series curated by the Centre for Irish Studies to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising will focus on Richard Henebry, a trenchant critic of attempts to modernise Irish language writing, who compared Pádraig Pearse’s short stories to ‘the mincing of an underassistant floor-walker of a millinery shop’.

The Reverend Dr Richard Henebry was a Waterford-born scholar, priest and patriot whose commitment to Irish traditional music is evident in the posthumuosly published A Handbook of Irish Music (1928), a unique analysis of traditional music. 

Dr Méabh Ní Fhuartháin will introduce ‘Pearse’s ‘eccentric critic’: Dr Richard Henebry, 1863-1916’ as a revivalist and scholar in the field of traditional music and will contextualise his scholarship in Ireland of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

 

Location: Galway City Library, Augustine Street    
Time: 18.30

Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion

The Centre for Irish Studies at NUI Galway will host an exclusive screening of a new documentary on the life and work of poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi by award-winning filmmaker Paula Kehoe.

Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion explores the sensual imagination of a revolutionary poet and includes poems in which the conflicted legacy of political violence for the families of those involved is dramatised and interrogated. The poet’s father Seán MacEntee was in the GPO throughout the Rising and her mother Margaret Browne assisted Michael Collins’s assassination squad during the war of independence.

The film premiered at the Cork Film Festival, where it was shortlisted for the Audience Prize, and features the exquisite movement poetry of New York performance artist Maureen Fleming, the voice of Olwen Fouéré, and music by Colm Mac an Iomaire.

The screening is the first of a number of public events, including a series of lectures that will take place in Galway City Library early next year. ‘Lectures in the Library/Léachtaí sa Leabharlann’ will explore the lives of individuals who were involved in the Irish revolution, including anarchist Captain Jack White, Peadar Kearney who wrote the ‘Soldier’s Song’ and Liam Gógan who coined the term ‘poblacht’, the first word in the proclamation of the Irish republic. The Centre’s programme of commemorative events will raise questions as to the contemporary relevance of the transformative ideas that led to the formation of the Irish state.

The Galway screening of Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion will be followed by a questions and answers session director Paula Kehoe who received the Radharc Award for best Irish documentary in 2014.

The screening will take place in the main theatre at the Institute for Lifecourse & Society on Newcastle Road beginning at 7.30pm on Wednesday 2 December 2015. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend.

Reviews of Deargdhúil:  Anatomy of Passion‌

A poignantly beautiful and revealing documentary… The Irish Times

A treasure trove of archive footage, replete with luminous images, Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion is a worthy monument to a truly indomitable spirit. The Irish Post

A series of intimate interviews will give you access into the mind of one of the most profound creatives Ireland has produced, accompanied by fluid retellings of some of her most treasured poetry. Don’t miss the opportunity to gain insight into the life and loves of Máire Mhac an tSaoi. Le Cool Dublin

Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion, Dánta Mháire Mhac an tSaoi. A creative portrait of the revolutionary Irish poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi.

For a taster of Deargdhúíl see            https://vimeo.com/143972044

                                                            https://vimeo.com/142623427

Location: Institute for Lifecourse & Society on Newcastle Road     
Time: Wednesday 2 December 2015, 7.30 p.m.

Seminar

IRISH STUDIES SEMINAR:  We are delighted to announce our next Irish Studies Seminar, '“Hear The Band which is more powerful than the Atom Bomb!” Labour, Aesthetics, and Irish Sit Down Dance Orchestras, 1940 – 1960' which will be given by Rebecca Miller (Hampshire College), our visiting IACI-NUIG Visiting Fellow in Irish Studies, 2018-19.
All are welcome!

Location: Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies    
Time: 4.00pm