Former Ireland Professor of Poetry Paul Muldoon, described by the Times Literary Supplement as “the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War,” joins us at Boston College for a poetry reading and the screening of a documentary about his life. Muldoon is the author of more than 30 poetry collections, including Moy Sand and Gravel (2002), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He has also published collections of criticism, children’s books, opera libretti, song lyrics, and works for radio and television. The reading is on March 13 in Devlin Hall, and the screening of Paul Muldoon: Laoithe ‘s Liricí / A Life in Lyrics (2022, director Alan Gilsenan) is on March 14 in Higgins Hall.
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Boston College’s Marjorie Howes and the University of Buffalo’s Joseph Valente co-edited a collection of essays on the Irish Revival. The Irish Revival: A Complex Vision seeks to reimagine the field by offering a nuanced reinterpretation of the revival utilizing the theoretical concept of “complexity,” recently developed in the information and biological sciences.
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To mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Seamus Heaney, Vera Kreilkamp edited a special issue of Éire-Ireland featuring essays exploring archival sources, forgotten publications, and institutional commemorations of the poet’s life as well as auditory and visual echoes of Heaney’s presence. The issue also features nine interviews with poets influenced by Heaney and an article titled “Remembering to Forget: Heaney and 1798 Revisited” by Sullivan Chair in Irish Studies Guy Beiner.
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Our new faculty member Colleen Taylor’s monograph with Oxford University Press is the first book to apply new materialist theory to the critical study of Ireland. It showcases five case studies on nonhuman features in Irish colonial culture, responding to—and revising—literary criticism dominated by the English canon while incorporating both English and Irish-language works.
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Guy Beiner and Robert J. Savage contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland (Oxford University Press). Edited by Gladys Ganiel and Andrew R. Holmes, this collection features 36 leading experts who engage with key interdisciplinary topics including identity, secularization, everyday religion, and gender. Beiner’s essay is on “Religion and Memory in Modern Ireland,” and Savage’s essay is on “Religion and Broadcasting in the Two Irelands.”
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Guy Beiner also contributed a chapter to Race in Irish Literature and Culture (Cambridge University Press), a collected volume, edited by Malcolm Sen and Julie McCormick Weng, that explores the intersections between Irish literature, culture, and questions of race, racialization, and racism from the 16th century to the present. Beiner’s essay, co-written with Oded Y. Steinberg, is titled “Racializing Irish Historical Consciousness.”
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February 7, 4–6 pm, Connolly House
Robin Adams discusses how the underground Irish revolutionary government’s funds were solicited, collected, transmitted, and safeguarded as well as who the financial backers were and what might have influenced their decision to contribute. Adams is this year’s visiting exchange fellow from Queen’s University Belfast.
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February 14, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Eoin Lettice, plant scientist and lecturer at University College Cork, explores the historical and cultural links between Irish people and trees and looks at current political and policy efforts to restore at least some of these trees in the interests of commerce, climate change mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity.
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February 21, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Kevin Rafter explores the contested legacy of the controversial Irish political figure Charles J. Haughey, by focusing on his engagement with the arts as well as artistic representations of his career. Rafter is a full professor of political communication at Dublin City University and a 2024 Fulbright scholar at Boston College.
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February 28, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Kieran Connell explores how Britain became multicultural between the end of the Second World War and the present day by focusing on Birmingham, Britain’s “second city,” during the 1960s, a period of rapid sociopolitical change. Connell is a senior lecturer in contemporary British history at Queen’s University Belfast.
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March 20, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Alison Garden and Ruth Duffy examine the vast complexities of sustaining a relationship across political and religious divides in 20th century Ireland. Duffy is a research fellow and Garden is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and senior lecturer at the School of Arts, English and Languages in Queen’s University Belfast.
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March 27, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Renée Fox’s talk spans 19th-century Irish fiction and 21st-century Irish neo-Victorian fiction to examine the ways in which colonial modes of reading have shaped the gaps and givens of Irish literary history. Fox is an associate professor in the Literature Department at UC Santa Cruz.
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April 3, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Martin Doyle, book editor of the Irish Times, uncovers an intimate history of the Northern Ireland conflict through the testimony of the friends and families of more than 20 victims who died violently in his rural parish. Doyle's memoir Dirty Linen: The Troubles in My Home Place (Irish Academic Press) was shortlisted for the Irish Nonfiction Book of the Year.
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April 10, 5–7 pm, Burns Library
Felix Larkin outlines the history of Irish cartoons, from Mathew Carey to Martyn Turner, and cartoons about the Irish, from Daniel O’Connell to Brexit. Larkin, a Royal Historical Society fellow and former chairman of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, has published widely on the history of the press in Ireland.
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April 13, 9 am–3 pm, Connolly House
In conjunction with Cumann na Gaeilge i mBoston, BC Irish Studies is hosting its second annual Lá Gaeilge (Irish Language Day) this spring. Please join us for an educational and entertaining day of Irish language and culture. All members of the BC and Greater Boston communities are welcome. Bígí linn!
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April 16, 5–7 pm, Connolly House
Alvin Jackson comparatively examines the United Kingdom, the union of Ireland and Britain, arguing that British and Irish elites exported the idea of union by advocating for or encouraging other united kingdoms at the beginning of the 19th century. Jackson is the Sir Richard Lodge Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh.
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This spring, BC graduate students will host the seventh annual Comhfhios conference. This year’s theme, “Éire’s Ireland: Shifting Visions of Performance & Positionality,” will convene scholars from near and far to investigate the historic and literary constructions and performances of identity in Ireland and the diaspora. Elizabeth Brewer Redwine, lecturer of English at Seton Hall University, will give the keynote address.
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Professor Mike Cronin’s Business, History and Politics of Sport program offers BC students the opportunity to spend a month living in Dublin and Galway studying various aspects of the sports industry, including the history of sports, their function in different countries, and why they mean so much to people. Apply here!
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