News and Events
26 May 2011
The QUB Irish Studies Initiative will host a special lecture
MACARONI IN BALTIMORE: CONSUMING ATLANTIC CUTLURE IN RURAL IRELAND DURING THE AGE OF REVOLUTION
Professor Kevin O'Neill (Boston College)
5pm, Lanyon Building Room, G9
The QUB Annual Irish Studies Lecture 2011
The 2011 QUB Annual Irish Studies Lecture will be given by Professor Conor Gearty. Professor Gearty is Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics. Professor Gearty has published widely in the fields of terrorism, civil liberties and human rights. He has approached all these subjects in an inter-disciplinary manner, and in particular has sought to locate them in their legal and political and historical contexts. Details of all his professional activities and publications can be obtained via his website, www.conorgearty.com
On Thursday 19th May at 5pm, Professor Gearty will speak on the subject of: 'After Saville'
Venue: Seminar Room 1, Institute of Irish Studies 53-67 University Road
QUB - Boston College Faculty Exchange 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Peter McLaughlin, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at QUB, and Professor Kevin O’Neill, Irish Studies Programme at Boston College, who will both be participating in the QUB/Boston College Faculty Exchange Scheme in 2011. This Exchange involves one member of Queen’s staff involved in an aspect of Irish Studies research or teaching to visit the Newton Campus for a maximum of one week during the teaching semesters of 2010-11; in return one member of Boston College faculty will visit Queen’s.
Dr. McLaughlin’s research interests include Irish history and politics with a particular focus upon Irish nationalism in the context of Northern Ireland. His recent research considers the influence of Europe and European integration upon Irish nationalism and Northern Ireland.
Professor Kevin O’Neill is the co-founder of Boston College’s Irish Studies Programme and is also an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Boston College. Professor O’Neill’s research interests include the social, economic and cultural history of eighteenth and nineteenth century agricultural societies, with a strong focus upon pre-famine Ireland.
The QUB Annual Irish Studies Lecture 2010
The 2010 QUB Annual Irish Studies Lecture will be given by Professor Elizabeth Malcolm. Elizabeth Malcolm is the Gerry Higgins Professor of Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne. Professor Malcolm works mainly in the field of Irish social history and has published on topics, such as: temperance, drink and pubs; popular culture; asylums and mental illness; hospitals and disease; crime and policing; women’s and gender history; and migration. She has also written about recent Irish historiography and the development of Irish Studies.
On Thursday 21 October 2010, Professor Malcolm will speak on the subject of: 'From Famine to Fever: the Irish and the Australian Gold Rushes, 1850-70'
This lecture will examine the Irish who took part in the main Australian gold rushes of the 1850s in the new colony of Victoria. It will investigate in particular how their experiences of living in famine-ravaged Ireland and then immigrating to Australia in the fevered atmosphere of the early gold-rush period affected their physical and mental health. Only perhaps 20 per cent of miners made any money, so what happened to the rest who arrived with such high hopes of wealth? And what of their families in Ireland expecting to receive large remittances? Significant numbers of Irish women as well as men went to Victoria during this period. Did they work on the gold diggings or marry miners? Most Irish settled eventually, and the 'gold-rush generation' has been hailed in Australia as a success story. But what of those who didn't succeed or settle and instead became casualties of gold fever?
Venue: Bell Lecture Theatre, Pysics Building, 5pm
Queen’s – Boston College Irish-Studies Exchange 2010-11
Queen’s initiated in 2008-9 a faculty exchange with Boston College, Newton, MA, under the Irish Studies International Research Initiative. One member of Queen’s staff involved in an aspect of Irish Studies research or teaching will be funded by Queen’s to visit the Newton Campus for a maximum of one week during the teaching semesters of 2010-11; in return one member of Boston College faculty will visit Queen’s. The visiting scholar in each case will be expected to participate in academic activities at their host institution through such activities as presenting a research paper, participating in postgraduate or undergraduate seminars and engaging in joint research activity; visiting scholars will also have full access to the library and archive resources at the host institution.
Applications are invited from Queen’s staff members with a research or teaching focus in Irish Studies to participate in the 2010-11 Boston College exchange. The Irish Studies Initiative committee will short-list applications for consideration by Boston College, but the final decision, leading to a letter of invitation, will be made by the directors of the Irish Studies Program at Boston College. The successful applicant may claim up to a maximum of £1500 for travel and accommodation expenses from Queen’s University.
Applications should be received by Professor Graham Walker, g.s.walker@qub.ac.uk no later than Friday 29 October 2010.
Full details of exchange:
7 October 2010
Contemporary Irish Political History Research Cluster will hold a one day conference
'Electoral Change and Prospects for Nothern Ireland'
Speakers include: Professor Jon Tonge (Liverpool), Professor John Brewer (Aberdeen), Professor Bernadette Hayes (Aberdeen)
9.30am - 5pm, Seminar Room 1, Governance Building, 53-67 University Road
History Staff / Postgraduate Seminars
Autumn Semester 2010
8 October - Shane Kenna (TCD) The Fenian dynamite campaign of 1881-85
29 October - Mel Farrell (NUI Maynooth) Few supporters and no organisation? Cumann na nGaedheal party organisation in the constituencies of Clare, Dublin North and Longford/Westmeath 1923-27
26 November - Christopher Cooper (Liverpool) Dealing with Dev: Hailsham's Irish Question 1932-38
10 December - Alan Noonan (UCC) Teaching the Irish a lesson they will not soon forget: F.W Bradley and the Irish miners of the Bunker Hill Mining Company
All seminars take place in the Postgraduate Seminar Room, 18 College Green at 4pm.
Peter Gray, Brad Patterson, Elizabeth Malcolm & Kathryn Patterson
1 July - 4 July 2010
17th AUSTRALASIAN IRISH STUDIES CONFERENCE
Transnational Ireland: migration, conflict, representations
QUB hosted the 17th Australasian Irish Studies conference on 1-4 July 2010. The conference sought to address aspects of the Irish experience in Australia and New Zealand, influences and experiences of Australians / New Zealanders in Ireland, and comparative experiences of emigration and conflict. The conference was interdisciplinary, with contributions areas including history, migration studies, sociology, politics, literature, museum studies, gender studies, geography, anthropology and law.
Keynote Speakers:
Richard Reid (Australian National Museum)
Claire Connolly (University of Cardiff)
Stuart Ward (University of Copenhagen)
Keith Jeffery (QUB)
17 June 2010
Dr Caroline Magennis, Research Fellow, Irish Studies International Research Initiative, celebrated the launch of her book Sons of Ulster: Masculinities in the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel in the Naughton Gallery, Queen's University Belfast.
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Friday 21 May 2010
D.W Miller Symposium
The Irish Politics Cluster in conjunction with King's College London School of History held a one-day conference on 21 May in honour of distinguished scholar Professor David W. Miller ( Carnegie Mellon University, USA ), author of 'Queen's Rebels' (1978) and many other studies in modern Irish history. Speakers included Professor Miller himself, Professor Colin Kidd ( University of Glasgow), Professor Sean Connolly ( QUB ) and Dr. Ian McBride ( KCL ).
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4th May 2010
Dr Tara Keenan-Thompson (Rome) gave a public lecture titled: '"These girls really weren't good enough for politics": class, gender and Dungannon in the early 1960s'. This lecture was hosted by the Gender and Queer Theory Programme 2010 and the Irish Studies International Research Initiative.
11 March 2010
Professor Diarmuid Ferriter, UCD, gave a lecture on 'Occasions of Sin: Writing the Sexual History of Modern Ireland' as part of the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Contemporary Irish Political History Research Cluster.
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Boston College Faculty Exchange 2010
The Boston College / QUB Faculty Exchange programme is now in its second year. Professor Vera Kreilkamp (Boston College) visited the QUB campus during the week of 8th March. During her stay at QUB Professor Kreilkamp gave a public lecture on 'Big House fiction and Irish literary modernism', which was very well received, co-hosted a postgraduate student workshop on publishing in Irish Studies and met with staff at the QUB Naughton Gallery.
Professor Desmond Bell , School of Languages, Literature and Performing Arts, QUB, undertook a research visit to the Boston College campus on 15th March where he lead a seminar on the subject of documentary filmmaking and history: "Memory, Archive, Telling: Documentary Film and History.". Professor Bell also screened his latest work in the Boston College Irish Studies Film Series titled "Child of the Dead End"
Professor David N. Livingstone
Professor David N. Livingstone, MRIA, OBE, professor of geography and intellectual history at Queen’s University Belfast, has been invited to be the first speaker at a symposium in Harvard University, March 2010, on ‘Changing Climate: Historians and Hemispheres in Conversation’. Professor Livingstone’s talk is entitled “Changing Climate, Human Evolution and the Revival of Environmental Determinism”. It will look at climatic explanations for human evolutionary history in the twentieth century comparing the 1920s (with its racial agendas) with the recent resurgence of interest in climatic explanations for cultural collapse and other key aspects of human history.
Professor David Livingstone is a member of the Irish Studies International Research Initiative Steering Group and has contributed to debates and research on Ireland. He was recently honoured with a Gold Medal from the Royal Irish Academy f or outstanding contributions to the social sciences and the environment & geosciences. Professor Livingstone is the first academic from Northern Ireland to be awarded with the prestigious Gold Medal. His recent publications include:
Putting Science in it Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)
“Race, space and moral climatology: notes toward a genealogy,” Journal of Historical Geography, 28 (2002): 159-180
“Science, religion and the geography of reading: Sir William Whitla and the editorial staging of Isaac Newton’s writings on biblical prophecy,” British Journal for the History of Science, 36 (2003): 27-42
“Oriental travel, Arabian kinship and ritual sacrifice: William Robertson Smith and the fundamental institutions” Society and Space, 22 (2004): 639-657
26 - 27 February 2010
Irish Studies International Research Initiative will host a conference:
Irish Masculinities: An Interdisciplinary Conference
Seminar Room 1, 53-67 University Road, Queen's University of Belfast
Contact: irishmasculinities@googlemail.com
Peter Middleton has asserted that 'Modern writers have revelled in masculinity without ever quite naming 'it' and this is particularly true of Irish authors and cultural practitioners. This inaugural interdisciplinary conference on Irish Masculinities will examine the multitudinous ways in which the Irish male has been portrayed and interrogated in Irish culture and society. Criticism on this issue is only now beginning to emerge and it is the aim of this conference to draw this diverse body of researchers together to locate and theorise Irish Masculinities for the first time within the specific context of Irish Studies.
Plenary speakers:
Professor Gerardine Meaney (UCD): 'The Undercover Irishman: Race, Masculinity and Popular Culture'
Professor Patricia Coughlan (UCC): '"Taking real things for shadows": Contemporary Irish Literature and Masculine Affects"'
Professor John Wilson Foster (QUB)
Plenary Speakers
Irish Masculinities Conference Poster
Professor Don Akenson (Queen's University Ontario), and Professor Graham Walker (Queen's University Belfast)
Thursday 18 February 2010
The Contemporary Irish Political History Research Cluster, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, hosted the Frank Wright Memorial Lecture.
'Irish Nationalism: Is a world-system view possible?', by Professor Don Akenson (Queen's University Ontario). Many thanks to Professor Akenson for an interesting and stimulating lecture.
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29 January 2010
The Irish Studies International Research Initiative held a one day conference:
‘Constitutional Nationalism in
Past, Present, and Future’
The conference set out to examine an aspect of the
Speakers included:
Eamon Phoenix (
Sean Farren (
Jonathan Tonge (
In addition, the conference included a research methods workshop, ‘
Thanks to all the speakers and those who participated in the workshop.
University of Maryland visit School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy,QUB
A group of twenty students from the University of Maryland visited the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy (PISP) in January for a talk by Dr John Garry on the subject of ‘Deeply Divided Societies, Consociationalism and Contemporary Northern Ireland Politics’. The students come from a range of social science and liberal arts programmes and all share an interest in the academic study of deeply divided societies. The students were led by Dr Sue Briggs from the College of Behavioural and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland.
Dr Briggs stated: ‘This visit was a great success. It was extremely enjoyable and informative. The students learned a lot about attempts to generate a stable government in Northern Ireland and how lessons for the wider world can be drawn from the Northern Ireland case.’
The QUB-Maryland link will be developed further in coming years. Dr Briggs and Dr Garry are already planning a second visit in two years time when a new group of Maryland students will visit QUB to learn about conflict resolution and a series of lectures and events will be held .
Given the academic expertise in QUB and Maryland on the subject of conflict resolution, research collaboration and academic exchange opportunities are being actively explored. Dr Briggs said: ‘I very much hope that the emerging QUB-Maryland relationship is firmly established and developed in the coming years’.
The University of Maryland is the second university in the Washington DC area that PISP is actively linked with. It already has firm ties with Georgetown University to which a number of PISP academics have had research visits. Professor Richard English, Head of the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, said: ‘Our School is keenly developing its links with prestigous leading US universities. We plan that this emerging QUB-Washington connection will facilitate very fruitful student and academic collaboration in the coming years.”
14 - 16 April 2010
The Centre for Research in Political Psychology (CResPP) at Queen's University Belfast will hold its inaugural conference between 14-16 April 2010.
Tearing Down the Walls: rethinking the political in political psychology
CResPP welcomes submissions from different disciplines and cultural contexts and encompassing a diverse range of methodologies. Submission for abstracts: 1 February 2010.
School of Law, Queen's University Belfast, will host its Annual Conference:
Devolution, Policing and Justice
This conference coincides with a defining moment in the political debate concerning the devolution of policing and justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It has been a fraught and challenging period in the recent history of political devolution, and the subtleties of the issues involved often have been lost. Drawing on contributions from established researchers, community-based practitioners, criminal justice monitoring bodies and the key agencies involved, this two-day conference aims to bring focus to the debate on devolution. Panels include: Policing; Community Engagement; Criminal Justice; Prisons and Punishment; Institutional Challenges. The conference encourages maximum participation of delegates. There will be Open Forums concluding each day and the presentations and discussions will be published.
Venue: Canada Room/ Council Chamber, Lanyon Building
Buffet Lunch provided
Booking: Deaglan Coyle, d.p.coyle@qub.ac.uk , tel: 028 9097 3472.
Maximum three delegates per organisation because of anticipated demand
School of Law booking form
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14 December 2009
The Symposium: The Birth of the Provisional IRA, 1969 which took place on Monday 14th December in QUB marked a significant encounter across political and ideological divides in Northern Ireland. In front of a jam-packed audience, both academics and political activists reflected on the fortieth anniversary of the Provisional IRA, a contentious but unquestionably significant development in Irish Politics and History. With this episode predating the birth of virtually all QUB students, the informed debate and fruitful disagreement on show was of great value to them as to others.
Contemporary Irish Political History Research Cluster & Governance and Public Policy Cluster will be holding a Postgraduate Workshop.
Speakers: Robert Smyth, 'Why do journalists always get it wrong? The Misinterpretation of opinion polls in the Irish media', Jason Foy, 'Brian Faulkner: the challenges of researching and writing a political biography'.
5pm, Seminar Room 1, 53-67 University Road.
This joint workshop will be followed by a drinks reception to be held in Seminar Room 1, 53-67 University Road from 6.30pm.
All Welcome.
26 November 2009
Booklaunch:
Between Shadows, modern Irish writing and culture, by John Wilson Foster
Guest speaker: Professor Terence Brown
Venue: Queen's Welcome Centre, Queen's University Belfast, 6.30pm.
RSVP: Karen O'Donaghue info@iap.ie
Between the Strikes: Northern Ireland 1974 – 1981
The 'Northern Ireland between the strikes: 1974-81' conference was held at the Institute of Irish Studies on 6-7 November 2009. The conference heard papers on a variety of subjects connected with this relatively understudied period of Northern Ireland's troubled past. It included contributions not just on history and politics, but also on sport, literature, religion and music.
Leading experts travelled to Queen's to give papers, including Dr Michael Kerr (KCL), Dr Richard Bourke (Queen Mary, UL), Dr Paul Burgess (UCC) and Professor Henry Patterson (UU). The high attendances on both days - over 40 people per session - is testimony to the interest in the period among the wider community.
Funding for the event was generously provided by the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, the Contemporary Irish Political History Research Cluster (directed by Professor Graham Walker), the QUB Student Led Initiative, and the Institute of Irish Studes, QUB (directed by Dr Dominic Bryan). The organisers wish to thank those who attended and assisted in making the event a success.
27 October 2009
Dr Caroline Magennis from the Irish Studies International Research Initiative introduced Glenn Patterson who gave a reading of his work as part of the Initiative's Autumn Semester Seminar Programme.
Congratulations to Megan Minogue, Bryanna Hocking, Annie Kane-Horrigan and Elena Bergia who have received postgraduate studentships from the Irish Studies International Research Initiative.
Bryanna (Bree) and Elena are currently enrolled on PhD programmes with the School of History and Anthropology and School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy. Megan and Annie are enrolled in MA programmes with the School of English and School of History and Anthropology.
These postgraduate studentships are advertised annually and are open to international candidates who are applying to QUB to undertake postgraduate programmes in any area of Irish studies.
The QUB Contemporary Irish Political History Research Cluster (in conjunction with the Irish Studies International Research Initiative) has released its programme of events for the Autumn Semester. Speakers will include Diarmuid Whelan (University College Cork) and Derek Birrell (University of Ulster).
Contemporary Irish Political History
6-7 November 2009
Between the strikes: Northern Ireland 1974-81
A two-day interdisciplinary symposium to be held at Queen’s University Belfast
This conference will provide an opportunity for postgraduate students to present new research and share in a dialogue with established scholars. Through this dialogue many dimensions which remain surprisingly under-researched and under-analysed will be explored.
Please email qubconference197481@googlemail.com
Conference organisers: Stuart Aveyard, James Greer, Shaun McDaid and Gareth Mulvenna
27 October 2009
'Big fat lies and fiction' a reading and discussion based on politics and the literature of Glenn Patterson.
Glenn Patterson is the author of many novels: Burning Your Own (1988), for which he was awarded the Rooney Prize and a Betty Trask first novel prize, Fat Lad (1992), Black Night at Big Thunder Mountain (1995), The International (1999), Number 5 (2003), That Which Was (2004), Lapsed Protestant (2006), The Third Party (2007), and Once Upon a Hill: Love in Troubled Times (2008). His short stories have been broadcast on Radio 3 and Radio 4 and articles and essays have appeared in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Independent, Irish Times, Dublin Review. He has been Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia, writer-in-residence at University College Cork and Queen's University. He has also presented numerous television documentaries and an arts review series for RTE.
Venue: Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, QUB
Time: 5.30pm
All Welcome
22 October 2009
Dr. Diarmuid Whelan (University College Cork) will give a lecture entitled 'Conor Cruise O'Brien: making politics out of the personal'. The lecture will be based on his new book published by Irish Academic Press (Conor Cruise O'Brien: Violent Notions) and copies will be on sale at the lecture. The discussant will be Dr. Richard Bourke (Queen Mary College, University of London).
Venue: Bell Lecure Theatre, Physics Building, QUB at 5pm.
This lecture is a joint venture between Irish Studies International Research Initiative and Irish Politics Research Cluster, QUB.
August 2009
Congratulations to Professor Desmond Bell, School of Languages, Literature and Performing Arts, QUB, who will be taking part in the next QUB / Boston College Faculty Exchange in March 2010. Professor Bell is Professor of Film Studies at QUB and his research interests include the political economy of the media, documentary film theory and practice, the history of visual culture, social history of photography in Ireland, practice-based research methodologies in film and the visual arts. He is also an active documentary film maker, whose work has been regularly broadcast and screened at international film festivals.
1 June 2009
The Irish Studies International Research Initiaitive hosted a public lecture by Professor Adrian Little (University of Melbourne):
Disjunctured narratives: reconciliation and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland
Professor Adrian Little was educated at Nottingham Trent University and Queen's University Belfast where he was awarded his PhD in 1993. He taught at University College Northampton and Goldsmiths College, University of London where he specialized in political and social theory before joining the School as Lecturer in Political Theory in February 2004. In 2008 he became Associate Professor and Reader in Political Theory and the new Head of School.
Professor Little's research interests include: contemporary political and social theory, democratic theory and practice, Northern Irish politics and British politics.
His recent monographs include:
Democratic Piety: Complexity, Conflict and Violence (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
Democracy and Northern Ireland: Beyond the Liberal Paradigm? (London: Palgrave, 2004)
The Politics of Community: Theory and Practice (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002)
Professor John Morison, Professor Richard English, Professor Keith Jeffery
15 May 2009
Congratulations to Professor Richard English, (School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy), Professor John Morison (School of Law) and Professor Keith Jeffery (School of History and Anthropology) who were recently elected as Members of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) at a ceremony in Dublin. Membership of the Royal Irish Academy is awarded to scholars who who have attained international distinction in science or the humanities and social sciences. Professors English, Morison and Jeffery have all made valuable contributions through their research in various aspects of Irish Studies at QUB.