To mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Irish Studies will host a two-day symposium at Connolly House on women’s voices that offer insight into the Troubles. On Friday, April 28, Belfast-born author Louise Kennedy will read from her acclaimed debut novel, Trespasses, about a romance across the sectarian divide in 1970s Belfast. Saturday’s program features presentations by Derry-born journalists Susan McKay and Freya McClements and a screening of Lyra, a 2022 documentary by Alison Millar about the life and death of Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee. The program is co-sponsored by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Consulate General of Ireland, the Northern Ireland Bureau, and BC’s journalism program.
|
|
|
|
|
The spring 2023 Burns Scholar is Eunan O’Halpin, emeritus professor of contemporary Irish history at Trinity College Dublin. A historian of 20th-century Irish and British political, administrative, and diplomatic history, he is teaching the course Ireland, America, and Britain During the Cold War, and working on a study titled “Neighbours from Hell: Afghanistan and the Second World War Belligerents, 1933–1947,” which identifies parallels between the experiences of the newly founded Afghan and Irish states.
|
|
|
|
|
Irish Studies is pleased to welcome for the spring term Eve Morrison, who joins us from Trinity College Dublin. Morrison is teaching a course called The Dynamics of Gender in Ireland, which traces shifts in concepts of femininity and masculinity from the mid-19th century to the present day.
|
|
|
|
|
Charles Seelig Professor in Philosophy Richard Kearney’s new novel Salvage explores tensions between progress and tradition in mid-20th-century Ireland. Set on an island off the southern coast, the story centers on main character Maeve O’Sullivan, who is torn between the pull of the past and the lure of the modern.
|
|
|
|
|
April 22, 9:00 a.m.–6 :00 p.m., Connolly House
Co-sponsored by the Institute of Liberal Arts, this international workshop brings together leading folklorists from Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States to initiate new discussions on the interface of folklore, history, and memory.
|
|
|
|
|
April 13, 4:00–6:00 p.m., Connolly House
Cheryl Lawther of Queen’s University Belfast will investigate the legacy of the Northern Irish conflict and its lingering traumas, focusing on the continued presence of the ghosts of the past in the haunting of lost lives, the landscape, and the unresolved past.
|
|
|
|
|
April 12, 5:00–7:00 p.m., Connolly House
Co-sponsored with the Center for Human Rights and International Justice, this interdisciplinary panel on transitional justice will feature Cheryl Lawther (Queen’s University Belfast), Zinaida Miller (Northeastern University), M. Brinton Lykes (BC), and Francisco de Roux, S.J. (chair of Colombia’s Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition).
|
|
|
|
|
April 3, 5:00–7:00 p.m., Connolly House
Richard English, director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast, and Dame Louise Richardson, president of the Carnegie Corporation, will discuss the state of terrorism studies at the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
|
|
|
|
|
April 1, 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m., Connolly House
Co-sponsored by the Cumann na Gaeilge i mBoston (Irish Language Society of Boston), Lá Gaeilge will feature a panel on Irish language revival in the U.S., Irish language classes, and a screening of the prize-winning film An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl).
|
|
|
|
|
March 29, 4:00–6:00 p.m, Connolly House
Doctoral candidate Megan Crotty will explore how Eimear McBride’s novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing uses narrative fracturing to induce sensations associated with trauma response and force the reader to truly witness the young protagonist’s story.
|
|
|
|
|
March 22, 5:00–7:00 p.m., Connolly House
In the annual Flatley Lecture, Lindsey Earner Byrne, professor of Irish gender history at University College Cork, will explore what the bureaucratic encounters generated by the Army Pension Act of 1923 tell us about the formation of the Irish Free State.
|
|
|
|
|
March 16, 5:00–7:00 p.m., Connolly House
In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, Irish Studies and the BC Philosophy Department will co-sponsor the launch of the latest novel by Richard Kearney, Boston College’s Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy. Salvage explores themes of modernity and tradition.
|
|
|
|
|
March 15, 7:45–9:30 p.m., Devlin 101
The documentary Young Plato (2021) follows headmaster Kevin McArevey as he tries to change the fortunes of primary-school youth in an inner-city Belfast community. Co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the screening will be followed by a conversation with McArevey himself.
|
|
|
|
|
March 2, 4:45–7:00 p.m., Burns Library
Marking the conclusion of Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries, Eunan O'Halpin’s Burns Scholar Lecture challenges the conventional chronology of the Irish Civil War and investigates how peace was achieved so quickly after the conflict. The reception begins at 4:45 and the lecture is at 6:00 p.m.
|
|
|
|
|
February 22, Gasson Hall 100
Distinguished Irish author Colm Tóibín delivered a Lowell Humanities Series lecture on his newest novel, The Magician, which imaginatively recovers the life of the writer Thomas Mann. Tóibín’s myriad fiction and nonfiction works include 2009’s Brooklyn, which was adapted into a film starring Saoirse Ronan.
|
|
|
|
|
February 15, Connolly House
This year’s Dalsimer Lecture was delivered by Boston College alum Hidetaka Hirota, who explored the roots of the populist dichotomy between “illegal aliens” and “legal immigrants,” examining the influence of 19th-century nativist rhetoric against Irish, Japanese, and Mexican immigrants.
|
|
|
|
|
February 8, Connolly House
Irish language instructor Sean Cahill and master’s student Rowan Bianchi contextualized a folk song composed by Munster poet Máire “Bhuí” Ní Laoghaire 200 years ago to commemorate a fatal battle between the Rockite secret agrarian society and local police forces.
|
|
|
|
|
February 1, Connolly House
Visiting Professor Eve Morrison presented research from her new book (Irish Academic Press) on the Kilmichael Ambush of 28 November 1920, one of the most famous and controversial IRA attacks of the Irish War of Independence. The seminar discussed debates over the history and memory of this landmark event.
|
|
|
|
|
Co-sponsored by the Burns Library’s Irish Music Archives and BC’s Irish Studies, the Gaelic Roots Series this spring features an incredible lineup, including storyteller Kate Chadbourne on February 23, musical trio Sliabh Notes on March 14, the duo The Kane Sisters on March 23, and Sean-Nós singer Lillis Ó Laoire on April 21.
|
|
|
Queering Hibernia »
The sixth annual Comhfhios conference welcomed graduate students from universities across the United States, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland to present their original research. With a keynote speech by Leanne McCormick (Ulster University) and panels on a sweeping range of topics, from medieval female kinship to turn-of-the-century Irish-American boxing, from Irish witch trials to depictions of Queen Maeve in pop culture, Comhfhios 2023 privileged the stories of women and queer communities, exemplifying the work of the future generation of Irish Studies scholars.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2023–2024 Dalsimer Fellowship
|
Congratulations to Daniel Dougherty, doctoral candidate in the English Department, for being awarded the 2023–24 Dalsimer Fellowship in Irish Studies. Dougherty’s dissertation examines the arrangements of time within the global anglophone Bildungsroman, cutting across periods and national divides.
|
|
|
© 2023 The Trustees of Boston College. Legal
|
|
|
|
