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Current Seminar Series

Our Irish Studies Research Seminar Series runs weekly on Monday afternoons at 4.30. Seminars are open to members of the university and the public.

Irish Studies Seminars - Autumn 2023

Seminars are on Mondays at 4.30 pm in the Irish Studies Seminar Room, 27UQ/01/003, unless otherwise indicated

Most seminars will be both in-person and online via MS Teams. Please register via MS Teams. Events are free and open to all.

Date: 2/10/2023
Time: 4:30PM - 6:00PM
Location: Institute of Irish Studies, 27 University Square
Category: Workshop / Seminar / Course

Belfast refugees 1972

Date: 4/10/2023
Time: 1:00PM - 2:30PM
Location: Institute of Irish Studies Seminar Room, 27UQ/01/003
Category: Lecture / Talk / Discussion

Previous Seminars

A number of our previous Seminars are available online for audio/video streaming.

CLICK HERE to see the programmes and access the streams.

Irish Studies International lecture

The Institute hosts an annual International Irish Studies Lecture given by a distinguished academic or figure in public service.

Previous lecturers have included Brian O'Dwyer (New York), Prof Pat Palmer (Maynooth), Prof David Lloyd (University of California, Riverside), Prof Richard Kearney (Boston College), Prof Joe Lee (New York University), Prof Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam), Prof Elizabeth Malcolm (University of Melbourne) and Prof Marianne Elliott (University of Liverpool).

Irish Studies International Lecture 2023

Professor Dianne Hall, Victoria University, Melbourne: 'Coming home: Travelling from Australia to Ireland before 1925'. Wednesday 31 May at 5.00pm, Canada Room & Council Chamber, Lanyon Building

Many Irish who settled in Australia wrote about their desire to go 'home'. Of all of those who dreamed of return, only a small number of the 400,000 Irish who settled in Australia between 1788 and the 1920s did so. Irish census records as well as family archives of some of the returning travellers reveals some of the women and men who travelled to Ireland before 1925, for leisure, education, employment and for support if their hopes of success in Australia faded. Prof. Diane Hall (Victoria University, Melbourne) os the co-author of A New History of the Irish in Australia (with Elizabeth Malcolm, 2018) and Imperial Spaces: Placing the Irish and Scots in Colonial Australia (with Lindsay Proudfoot, 2011) and has published widely on the histories of gender, violence, religion and migration in Ireland and the diaspora. This is a public lecture - all welcome. Register via Eventbrite

RECORDING AVAILABLE HERE

Date: 4/10/2023
Time: 12:00PM - 2:00PM
Location: Connolly House, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Category: Lecture / Talk / Discussion

EFACIS Conference at Queen’s University Belfast, 24-27 August

EFACIS (the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies) travels to Belfast for the first time in 2023. The Federation holds an interdisciplinary Irish Studies conference every two years in a different European city, and the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s is delighted to have the opportunity of hosting the 2023 event. We look forward to welcoming some 200 delegates from fourteen European countries alongside Ireland the UK, as well as from other countries such as the US and Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China and South Africa. The range of speakers and topics is testament to the global vibrancy of Irish Studies, and the conference will also offer an opportunity for Queen’s to showcase its own extensive strengths in the field, which has been co-ordinated by the university’s Institute of Irish Studies since 1965. The conference is co-sponsored by the Seamus Heaney Centre for Creative Writing and the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, with support from the Schools of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, and of Arts, English and Languages.

The conference theme is 'Unions and Partitions in Ireland'.  This incorporates historical and literary reflection on origins and memory of Ireland’s partition and the creation of its successor states, as well as more contemporary focus on the way in which the legacies of the ‘Troubles’, changing demographics and political instability have come to render the future of that 1920-22 settlement highly uncertain. The impact of the UK’s Brexit on Ireland, north and south, continues to complicate Northern Ireland’s engagement with the European Union as well as the United Kingdom. The conference also offers the opportunity to reflect on profound cultural questions about Irish identities on what remains a partitioned island, and place these in comparative contexts. This has and continues to play out in the cultural politics of language, and in rich seams of writing addressing not only the Irish border but partitions within culture, religion, class, and sexualities, north and south and past and present. At the same time, as Irish society in both parts of the island becomes increasingly diversified as a consequence of cultural and social change and migration, the dominance of older binaries of unitary identity has become increasingly challenged.

The conference runs 24-27 August 2023 on the main Queen’s campus.

CONFERENCE WEBSITE: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/efacis-2023/

 

Conference: Africa in Ireland

28-29 April 2023 at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland

The International Consortium for the Study of Africans in Ireland (ICSAI) invites submissions of papers for an interdisciplinary conference on Africa in Ireland: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives. This conference aims to address the historical presence of Africans and the Black diaspora in the past, present, and future on the island of Ireland. It will critically engage with this presence and the convergences of Irish-African cultural, political and religious relationships and connections. For details and Call for Papers (closing 1 Feb. 2023) click below.

CFP and Further Details
Gender and Political Imprisonment in Ireland '22

A one-day conference at Queen's University Belfast, 23 September 2022

CFP closes 30 April. Contact Susie Deedigan via genderpoliticalimprisonment22@gmail.com for more infornmation.

Call for Papers
Eucharistic Congress Symposium

When ‘all of Christendom had come’: The Dublin Eucharistic Congress – Ninety Years On, 23 February 2022 (PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DAY)

The Eucharistic Congress of 1932 is widely recognised to be a defining moment in the religious, social, and political life of the Irish Free State. The thirty-first international Congress took place in Dublin over the week of 21-26 June 1932, with smaller celebrations taking place in towns and villages across the island. With the input of the church, politicians, individuals, and community groups, the event represented an unparalleled display of the Catholic faith in the state. Coinciding with the fifteenth centenary of Patrick’s mission to Ireland, the Congress was viewed as public reaffirmation of faith and the just conclusion of Ireland’s religious history.

Programme and Registration
Booklaunch: Ireland 1922

Monday 7 February 2022 at 4.30pm

We are delighted to be able to launch Ireland 1922: Independence, Partition, Civil War, edited by Darragh Gannon and Fearghal McGarry - an important collection of interdisciplinary essays, published by the Royal Irish Academy in January 2022. Both editors, Dr Darragh Gannon (UCD) and Prof Fearghal McGarry (QUB) will speak to the book's themes and approaches, and Dr Margaret O'Callaghan (QUB) will give her assessment of its contribution to understanding that momentous year in Ireland's history. Everyone is welcome to join us either online via MS Teams or in person at 27 University Square 01.003. Please register online via Evenbrite.

See recording
book cover
The Partition of Ireland: Causes and Consequences

A Series of Online Talks

In order to mark the centenary of the partitioning of Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast is organising and hosting a major series of online public talks. The series is supported by the UK Government and the Irish Government, and by the British Academy and the Royal Irish Academy. The talks are being recorded and produced by the BBC. Talks will be posted weekly on Mondays at 12.00, starting 26 April 2021.

Partition Talks website
Irish Studies Postgrad Workshop: Northern Ireland and Brexit

The Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University Belfast is hosting a one day workshop organised by our postgraduate researchers on Wednesday 29 September 2021. This event is free and open to the public, and will be delivered online via MS Teams. Please pre-register via EVENTBRITE and we will send you a link to participate. For more information, contact the convenors Mylie Brennan (mbrennan36@qub.ac.uk) or Frances Neilson (fneilson01@qub.ac.uk). .

Eventbrite page
Programme Poster for Symposium
1971 and the Transformation of the Ulster Troubles

A free online public conference on Friday 25 June 2021 hosted by the Institute of Irish Studies

This conference will discuss the crisis of 1971 in Northern Ireland, including the introduction of internment, political upheaval, the upsurge in violence and the Ballymurphy Massacre, and their legacies, from the perspective of 50 years on. This event will be held online via MS Teams. Registration and the programme are available via our Eventbrite page. All welcome.

Click here for programme and recording of conference
Soldiers standing guard outside Unity Flats
Irish Studies Postgraduate Symposium: Digitising Ireland

Has the past year caused you to look to digitised collections for your research? If so, why not join the conversation?

The Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast presents a one-day postgraduate symposium, via Microsoft Teams, on Thursday 13 May 2021. It seeks to explore and promote the use of online collections in PGR Research. Contact Lucy Wray (lwray04@qub.ac.uk)

Register here
Brian Moore at 100 Project

A project to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Brian Moore, led by Dr Alison Garden (QUB) and Professor Sinéad Moynihan (Exeter)

Designed to coincide with the centenary of his birth, Brian Moore at 100 seeks to critically appraise, and thus revive scholarly and public interest in, the work of neglected and important Belfast-born writer, Brian Moore (1921-99). Throughout 2021, we will be organising at series of public-facing and academic events to celebrate, revisit and evaluate Moore's life and career. The project has been generously funded through a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant. - Launch Event for Brian Moore at 100: Roundtable Discussion (20 Jan. 2021, 6.30) - CFP: Brian Moore in Context (21-23 April 2021)

Project Blog and Events

Postgrad Reading Groups

The Reading Group in Irish Studies is open to all interested postgrads (MA and PhD), and is run by the Postgrads.

It meets monthly in term time.

Irish Studies Reading Group

Details to follow

 

The Troubles Reading Group

Details to follow

 

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